Her Destiny

by Monica Murphy

  It’s cold as hell too, the thin blankets not offering much protection against the chill air, but I hate wearing too many clothes when I sleep so it’s my own damn fault I’m cold. The Hales aren’t using central heat and I’m guessing that’s because it costs too damn much. Such a switch from their privileged life I witnessed all last summer. Evander Hale lived like a damn king with his designer clothes, expensive Rolex watch and crazy ass car that no teenager should be allowed to drive. Now he’s working his ass off, barely making it and trying to take care of his sister.

  Wild.

  Seeing Reverie in her new element only makes me respect her more. She’s so strong, so smart, so determined to do what she can to survive. I admire her guts. In the past I had zero guts because I naively believed the system would take care of me after David accused me of being a murderer. Considering how well that worked out for me, I finally learn how to stand up for myself, only to have the system come after me yet again.

  Well, screw that noise. I’m over it. Starting now, my life is going to change. It has to. I need to get the police off my back once and for all. First step, Reverie’s statement that she was with me the night Krista died. Reverie’s right—why would I protect her only to put my own future at risk? Crazy.

  Second step? Somehow convincing Reverie that we belong together. That might be harder to accomplish but I’m determined to make it happen.

  Closing my eyes, I breathe deep and tell my ass to go to sleep. It’s already close to two in the morning and I have no idea what the plan is when the sun comes up. Reverie said she has to work in the afternoon and I know Evan is working too. Where does that leave me? Is she definitely going with me like we discussed? Or is Evan going to take over and handle everything?

  I don’t want Evan coming between us. If I can get her alone, get her to come back with me I can make this happen. I can make us happen.

  I hear a noise in the hall and I crack open my eyes to see a golden strip of light shining beneath the closed door of the bathroom. I have no idea if it’s Evan or Reverie behind that door but I do know I have my preference. And when the door opens no less than a minute later, a gorgeous leggy blonde stepping out into the hall, I sit up, softly calling out her name. For a moment, I almost fear she didn’t hear me, but then she turns in my direction, a little smile curling her perfect lips. The relief that floods me as I watch her approach is near overwhelming.

  I have it so bad for this girl and she doesn’t have a clue.

  She walks toward me, her hair mussed, her expression sleepy. “Did you say my name?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  Her eyebrows scrunch up in that way they do when she’s confused. Damn, she’s cute. “You okay?” she whispers.

  I sit up more and scoot over, patting the space beside me. “Come here.” I gather the blankets into my lap because I’m only wearing my boxer briefs and I don’t want to scare her. She’s seen me in less but I don’t want to mess around like that with her brother in the next room.

  Besides, she’s not ready for that. I’m not going to push too hard. The last thing I want is to send her screaming, running away from me and shutting down my chances with her.

  “Reverie?” She doesn’t move, no sound, no answer comes from her and my heart feels like it stops beating for an infinitely long second before she settles on the couch by my side, her warmth seeping into me, she’s so close.

  “I shouldn’t do this,” she says into the darkness, facing away from me. “I should go back to my room.”

  I touch her hair, flip it over her shoulder so it flows down her back. “Don’t go.” It’s all I say, a simple request that I hope like hell she meets. “Can you sleep, knowing I’m out here?”

  “No,” she admits, her voice sounding choked. “But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s not like we’re together anymore. Everything’s so different now, including you. Including me.”

  “And that’s a bad thing? If you think you changing bothers me, you’re wrong.” I skim my fingers across the length of her shoulder, down along her upper arm, feeling her shiver beneath my touch. I wish I was touching bare skin. “I like who you’ve become.”

  “You don’t know me. Not really,” she counters.

  “I want to. And I think we got pretty close over the summer, don’t you?”

  She looks at me then, her eyes wide in the darkness, her lips parted. “I was such a different person then and you know it. I had…no clue.”

  “I know.” Leaning forward, I pull her into me, wrapping my arm around her shoulders, my mouth at her ear. My skin feels electric coming into contact with her, even though she’s almost completely covered. I close my eyes, battling against all the urges I have to throw her down on the couch beneath me and strip her naked. “I taught you a lot.”

  She smiles, tilting her head away from mine. “Stop.”

  “Stop what?” I press my lips to her cheek, offering her a lingering kiss that I want to take further. Further and further until we’re too far gone to care.

  “You’re teasing me.” The smile fades. “Making fun of the inexperienced girl.”

  “No way.” I let my lips drift across her cheek, toward her ear, until I’m nibbling on the lobe and making her squirm. “I love that you were so inexperienced. It means that you’re all mine.” Being with her, having her in my arms, the possessive urge that sweeps over me is hard to deny.

  This girl is definitely mine, though I’m not sure she realizes it.

  A shuddering sigh escapes her and she hangs her head down. “I’ve been with other boys.”

  I stiffen and pull away from her, curling my fingers around her chin and forcing her to look at me. “Hell, Reverie. Did you…have sex with them?” Anger bubbles up inside me and I tell it to fuck off. I have no right to be mad. We weren’t together. She was feeling lost, missing her old life. I can’t blame her.

  But I want to tear apart every one of those guys who had their hands on her, no matter how brief the interlude was.

  She slowly shakes her head, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I kissed them, that’s it, I swear. I think…oh my God, this is going to sound so stupid but I think I was trying to kiss you out of my system or something.”

  “Did that plan work out for you?” I ask, my voice low, my thoughts turbulent. I’m quietly freaking out inside waiting for her answer and I don’t know how long I can stand it.

  “No.” She loops an arm around my neck, pulling herself into me. “I still missed you.”

  Gripping her by the waist, I haul her into my lap, until she’s straddling me, her knees on either side of my hips, slender hands gripping my shoulders, her fingers pressing into my skin, making it sizzle. “You miss me now?”

  Reverie nods, her voice soft, her eyes heavy as she stares at my mouth. “Yes.”

  It’s the aching whisper of her voice that urges me into action. I kiss her, my mouth settling on hers, our lips connecting, our bodies pressed close together. My body instantly reacts to her taste, to the way she touches me, her knees pressed hard against my hips, the eager little noises that escape from the back of her throat when I part her lips with my tongue. I haven’t kissed her in months and the rush that comes when I touch my tongue to hers for the first time since forever spurs me on.

  I’m going to have to exercise some serious control tonight or she’s going to be naked in seconds. That’s all I really want. I think that’s all she wants too but I’m not about to risk her brother discovering us like this. He’ll hand me my ass on a platter for screwing his sister on his couch.

  And I’d like to keep my ass, thank you very much.

  “Nick.” She whispers my name after breaking our kiss, bending her head so she can kiss a path of heat along my jaw. My arms tighten around her waist and I want to shout in triumph that I have her like this. “I need to go back to bed.”

  Say…what? Pulling away from her slightly, I give her a little shake so she lifts her head, her gaze meeting mine. “What did you sa
y?”

  “I keep kissing you like this and I’ll want more.” She skims her fingernails down my chest, across my pecs and yeah, I’m instantly, painfully hard. “And I don’t want to move too fast.”

  Says the girl who came to my apartment and jumped my bones a few months ago. But she’s right. I know she’s right. We need to get through all of this, one step at a time. We shouldn’t cloud our judgment with a night of awesome sex.

  Though that sounds pretty damn good right now.

  “You’re right.” I lift her up and set her away so she’s sitting on the couch next to me once more, the both of us breathing a little too hard. My heart is racing and I feel like I’m on edge but damn it, I’m going to respect her wishes. “Go back to your room.”

  She gapes at me. “Nick. Really?”

  I need her to stop contradicting herself. She wants me. She doesn’t want me. I understand her struggle, as much as it frustrates me. “Yes.” I nod and stand, grabbing her hand so she has no choice but to stand with me. “Go to bed, Reverie. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Her face falls and I pull her to me, kissing her for a long, deep, wet minute so when I break the kiss, she wobbles on her feet, her dazed expression filling me with satisfaction. “Night,” I murmur against her lips before I give her one more lingering kiss.

  She heads for her bedroom with a weird little smile on her face, closing herself away within seconds. I collapse on the couch, my mind a disastrous mess because that was the most intense ten minutes of my life and now she’s gone.

  Fucking head trip is what that girl is giving me, not that I’m pushing her away. Hell, I’m reveling in the head trip, as fucked up as that sounds. The push and pull, the back and forth, it’s all worth it if the ultimate reward is Reverie in my arms.

  Forever.

  Another door opens and this time it’s Evan in the hall, wearing a pair of sweats and nothing else. I brace myself, knowing he can see me, that he can tell I’m awake and yep, here he comes, a grim look of determination on his face as he settles into the chair across from me.

  “You’re awake,” he says.

  “So are you.” Obviously.

  “And Rev just went back into her room,” he states as fact.

  A fact I can’t deny. But I won’t confirm either so I say nothing.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t find her out here with you. I won’t hesitate to kick your ass.”

  “We were just talking.” With our lips and tongues and no words being said but yeah. Let’s go ahead and call that talking.

  “My ass, you were just talking. But whatever, if that explanation makes you happy then we’ll go with it.” Evan leans forward, clasping his hands in front of him as he peers up at me. “Let’s get a few facts straight about my sister.”

  Great. At the rate I’m going I won’t get any sleep tonight. “All right,” I say cautiously.

  “She got all fucked up after what our parents did to us. Fucked up over what you did to her too,” he says, silencing me with a look when I’m about to open my mouth to protest. What the hell did I do to her? All I ever did was love that girl.

  “But she’s strong, my sister. I’m proud of Rev. She works hard, she’s doing well at school again and her friends are helping her out. Her life is on track the way it should be. I have a feeling she’ll get into a great college and then everything I’ve ever done for her won’t be in vain, you know?” He sounds like her dad, not her big brother. But it’s kind of…nice, for lack of better term, to see the perpetually spoiled rotten Evander Hale step up and take care of his sister. I’m impressed.

  “What about you?” I ask. Didn’t he have plans? He’s given everything up, sacrificing it all for Reverie, but what does Evan want?

  “Me? I’m fine. Doing what I do.” He blows off my words and I let it be. “It’s you I’m concerned about.”

  “I’m not going to do anything to ruin Reverie’s chances to get whatever she wants. I’m here to encourage her not hold her down,” I say.

  “You know what I see when I look at you?” At my shrug he continues. “Someone who’ll definitely hold her down. Hold her back. And that’s the last thing I want. So if that’s your plan, then you better keep on going. She doesn’t need you to come back into her life and fuck it up even worse.”

  “That is the last fucking thing I want,” I say vehemently. “You can trust me.”

  “Ha, right. Listen asshole, I trust no one. Not after what happened. Rev doesn’t trust anyone either. Just…don’t hold her back. Let her do her thing. Go back home and let her finish school. That’s the most important thing for her to do right now. Get that diploma and move the hell on.” Evan runs his hand through his hair, looking irritated. The air of utter exhaustion that hangs over him is palpable and I wonder if he knows just how much I understand where he’s at in life.

  Because I’m right there with him, minus a sister to take care of. Instead there’s a girl I want to take care of. A girl who means the fucking world to me. Maybe we can eventually share that duty or maybe we can’t but for now, I’m going to try my best to respect his wishes.

  No matter how hard that might end up being.

  ***

  Dear Diary,

  (November 14th, 3:09 a.m.) I haven’t written anything in you in a long time. I almost threw you away because it’s embarrassing to read my past entries, especially the last one when I was drunk and realizing that my life was nothing but a bunch of crap.

  Worse are the even earlier ones. Before I realized what was happening to my family. How we were splintering apart. I was such a fool. So naïve and stupid, believing everything I saw and heard for my entire life. It was all a pack of lies. The only one who was ever one hundred percent honest with me was Evan.

  And Nick. For the most part.

  He’s back in my life and I never thought that would happen. He walked so easily into my life and just as easily walked right on back out of it. I thought I did something wrong. I thought I somehow drove him away, made him fall out of love with me, and that hurt so much. Then I became angry and told myself I didn’t love him either. It was just a foolish lack of judgment on my part. Caught up in a summer romance with a handsome boy, that could happen to any seventeen-year-old girl, right?

  But then he shows up at my work and my entire body reacted like he never left. My semi-rational brain told me to get rid of him and I tried, though I really didn’t want to. The way I feel about him confuses me. I want him but I shouldn’t. I love him but he’ll hurt me.

  I don’t like the back and forth. The uncertainty. The wondering. I wish it were simpler. But life isn’t simple. I discovered that the hard way.

  Nick is in my apartment now, at this very moment and knowing he’s so close, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t resist him either, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that going to him would be the wrong thing to do.

  Guess what? I went to him. I let him pull me onto his lap. I savored the feel of his strong arms around me, holding me close, my hands on his warm, firm skin, my mouth on his. The boy can kiss like no other and now that I have a few to compare him to there is just…no comparison.

  I came to a realization while kissing him. One that clung to me long after I left him and went back to my room. It’s why I finally dug out this old diary and decided to write in it again. I needed to get out my thoughts. My feelings.

  I’m madly in love with him. I know it’s stupid. I bet he’ll break my heart again but I don’t care. I’m throwing myself into this for however long it lasts and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.

  So here I am, confessing my love for him once again. It never stopped. Like it could. All I want from him is more. More and more and more until there’s nothing left for him to give. I want him to be mine.

  All mine.

  Evan will protest I’m sure but I don’t care. He can’t tell me what to do. I’ll finish school and see Nick when I can. And the minute I graduate I’m moving. Or I’ll
convince Nick to move here. It sounds crazy because we’re so young but Mom told me long, long ago that once you know, you know.

  And I know. I’m convinced Nicholas Fairfield is the boy…the man for me.

  No one is going to convince me otherwise.

  ***

  November 14th

  I wake up and practically jump out of bed, excited to see Nick splayed out on my couch, which is dumb, I know. I need to play this cool, not act like an overeager puppy ready to slobber all over him.

  But I can’t help it. Despite everything and how wary I still feel, I’m happy he’s here. That Evan didn’t kick him out. That I went back out to Nick after Evan went to bed and talked to him. Kissed him…

  With as much calm as I can muster, I exit my bedroom, walking slowly down the hall like I’m some sort of regal princess parading for my royal subjects until I come to a stop in the middle of the living room. Only to discover the couch is empty, the blankets Nick used last night folded neatly and sitting on the coffee table, ready to be put away.

  He’s gone. Like he was never here last night. Glancing around, I look for a clue, a hint of something that he really was here, but there’s nothing. Maybe I made it all up. The way we talked, how he kissed me…

  False. A dream.

  My knees weaken and I settle heavily on the couch before they completely give way. I’ve never been more disappointed in my life. Dipping my head, I bite my lip so hard I’m afraid I might make myself bleed and close my eyes, fighting back the tears.

  He’s just…gone.

  “I sent him to go pick up coffee and doughnuts,” Evan says from behind me.