The Bad Boy's Dance

by Vera Calloway

  “Know what?! What are you talking about?”

  Asher prowled towards me. “What the HELL were you THINKING!” he bellowed, the anger clear on his face nearly bowling me over.

  I stared openmouthed as he paced in front of me, stopping to shoot me a glare of equal parts rage and…fear. “Why did you make that deal with Trevor Garibaldi?”

  Oh fudge buckets.

  “How did you find out?” I said in a small voice.

  He threw up his arms in frustration. “There’s a gossip mill like you couldn’t believe with the people I deal with. In no time at all, everyone was buzzing about Trevor’s teenage pet he’d introduced to Viktor Derevko.”

  “Busybodies,” I mumbled.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Ivy? You put yourself on Derevko’s radar, and if he figures out you have any type of a connection to me, he will use you to get to me. God, why would you do something like this?” His voice rose again, and my previous remorse and embarrassment vanished.

  “To keep you safe, you idiot! You’ve done so much for me, did you think I would turn away a chance to help you? You turned up at my door on the verge of death, Asher!” I yelled, my hands fisting at my sides.

  “I don’t need you to keep me safe! I’ve been doing just fine. I can handle myself with these people, but you have no chance!” Asher growled, slamming his fist into the wall. Bits of paint chipped off, falling to his feet.

  “Stop trying to protect me all the time! Let me do it for a change. I don’t want to be your obligation, Asher!”

  “My obligation? Is that how you think I see you?” Asher asked, getting even angrier.

  I rubbed my temples. “What’s done is done, alright? Derevko isn’t going to hunt me down!”

  Asher advanced towards me, caging me against the couch with his arms. “You have no idea what kinds of people they are,” he hissed. “They will stop at nothing to get what they want, and they’ll burn anything standing in their way. They took down my father, Ivy, and you couldn’t get a sneakier, more manipulative bastard than him. What makes you think you stand a chance?”

  I shoved against his shoulder, pushing him away a few steps. “What makes you think you can? Despite your invincibility complex, they can-and have- hurt you, Asher. If someone had come to you and offered you a way to protect me, would you have turned them down?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Like hell it isn’t!”

  At this point, Jodi started wailing. I rushed over, picking her up into my arms. Rocking back and forth, I smoothed her hair until she calmed down. She became more interested in experimenting with the inside of my ear.

  Asher had a mask over his face I’d never seen before. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, and a fissure of fear entered my chest. Had I messed up that badly?

  “We’ll figure this out later,” I vowed, forcing him to meet my eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Hurrying outside and to my car, I buckled Jodi in and climbed into the driver’s seat. All during the drive home, and the rest of the day, I was distracted with thoughts of our fight. It was our first real fight, and I didn’t like it at all.

  “Ivy! Dinner!” Paul called up that night, an hour before I was to go to bed.

  “Isn’t this a little late?” I joked as I pulled a chair out at the table. “I was going to go to sleep soon.”

  Paul smiled sheepishly and pointed at Spencer. “It’s his fault. Don’t ask me how. He managed to burn the soup.”

  “How do you burn soup?” I pondered, mystified.

  “You overheat it and the vegetable burn,” Paul clarified. “Because some people are idiots like that.”

  Spencer flipped Paul off as he fed Jodi. He was saddled with the task tonight since I’d had to take his shift this morning.

  Laughing slightly, I forked some salad and mashed potato into my plate, but I just ended up pushing it around.

  “You alright, Ives?” Paul inquired, shoveling an asparagus into his mouth. “I know my cooking is bad, but you should eat something.”

  Obligingly, I forced down some beef and bread, but my stomach was too coiled from my encounter with Asher. I couldn’t understand why he was so angry. It’s not like Derevko was my best friend once removed or anything. And anyway, I’d only gone to a ‘job’ or whatever one time. I wasn’t exactly a hardened criminal just yet. So what was his problem?

  I couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning throughout the night. What was normal protocol for a situation like this? Was I supposed to call Asher and apologize? I’d gone to his house first, so the ball was in his park. My previous relationship had been anything but typical, and I had no reference to go by.

  Ugh. Boys suck.

  By morning, I was certain I looked like a zombie. It took me a solid ten minutes to have an MMA fight with my hair and lose. I ended up leaving it in a messy knot, and my clothes were a Batman T-shirt I’d had for years and an old pair of faded jeans.

  I made an ironic kissy-face at the mirror. “Who needs Victoria’s Secret?”

  After pecking Jodi’s cheek and checking she was fed, I picked up Dana and Caleb. Dana was feeling better while Caleb’s anxiety had grown. We spent most of the ride to school convincing him he’d get that soccer ball like Harry Potter got the snitch.

  “Dana, did you ever buy your ticket to Homecoming?” I asked, forcing a nonchalant tone.

  “No,” she pouted. “Freaking Jason. I’m not even going.”

  “Of course you are. It’s our senior year, and we’re all going. And this is coming from me, the girl who would rather chew off her knee than go to a school dance.”

  Dana cast me a suspicious look, but I only winked at her.

  My good mood was fouled when the bell rang for lunch three hours later, and Asher was once again absent. It was preposterous to think he needed three whole days to calm down. And isolating himself at home was only going to give him more time to dwell on it. Avoiding me was a useless tactic.

  After strategically placing Kyle in the seat beside Dana, I excused myself and told them I had a bit of a migraine. Kyle offered to drop them off, and I gave him a thumbs-up.

  Starting my car, I just sat there and debated the wisdom of my actions. Should I go there, even after the harsh rejection from yesterday? It was obvious he wasn’t ready to speak to me. Maybe I was pushing him too much.

  Also, this was the third time I was ditching class.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I extracted it to find a new text in my mailbox.

  Asher: Come to my house. We need to talk.

  Oookay, Mr. Moody raised his head once again. I drove from the school parking lot, slinking low in my seat when the school officer glanced at my car. Technically I wasn’t not allowed to be off school grounds, but it would look questionable this late during lunch.

  It took me less time to get to his house this time because of a lack of traffic. I locked my car and hesitated before marching up the long path to his front door. I raised my hand to the door bell ringer, but the door was already ajar.

  Asher wouldn’t leave his front door open in a million years. Fear bloomed in my chest. Could Derevko have hunted Asher to his own home? Abandoning propriety, I tossed the door open and galloped into the house. Where could he be?

  Tearing through the first corridor, becoming more and more frantic when I couldn’t locate him, I tried to slip as quietly as possible up the spiral stairs. If Derevko was here, it wouldn’t do Asher any good if I fumbled around like a cow and got captured.

  I opened every door in the second corridor until I got to the last one. This had to be it. I knew for a fact only the theater and the game room were on the third floor.

  I cracked the door open, just enough so I could see what was going to in the room and ascertain if there really were criminals after Asher.

  But I didn’t see criminals. Honestly, I wish I had.

  What I saw was Brenda Curtis, straddling a shirtless Asher on his bed. His jeans were u
nbuttoned, and Brenda was only wearing a lacey bra and matching panties. They were angled so I could clearly see Brenda kissing him, and Asher’s wet hair clinging to the side of his face. He’d just gotten out of the shower then.

  I stumbled back, and the movement caused Asher’s eyes to flash up to mine. They widened with horror, and he wrestled Brenda off him. “Ivy! Wait!”

  Spinning on my heel, I dashed like a madwoman down the corridor almost tripping over the spiral stairs as I raced through the front door. I could hear Asher shouting and his footsteps as he pursued me.

  Throwing myself into the car, I started the engine, not bothering to strap on my seatbelt. Asher was running full pelt at the car, and I thought for a minute he was going to throw himself in front of the car. Quickly, I reversed and made a U-turn. When I was sure he couldn’t catch me, I watched his figure get smaller and smaller in the middle of the road.

  Numbly, I barely managed to navigate traffic, and I could feel the tight fist around my heart constricting my lungs too, so I couldn’t breathe. I parked the car haphazardly next to the curb and unlocked the front door with shaking fingers. Not bothering to shut it behind me, I made a bee-line for my room, ignoring my brother’s calls.

  Shutting the door, I hovered over the bathroom sink and heaved. I’d skipped lunch and had a scant breakfast, so nothing came up. I studied my reflection in the mirror, but instead of seeing myself, all I saw was Brenda straddling Asher, both of them half-naked and kissing.

  That’s when the tears started.

  Once the dam broke, I couldn’t seem to stop. Sobs wracked my chest, burning my eyes as the ache in my chest tripled. The image of them, it wouldn’t go away. They were laughing at me in the mirror, laughing at my naiveté, at how stupid I was to think a guy like Asher Grayson could care for someone like me.

  With a scream, I hurled the soap dispenser at the mirror, breaking it into a million pieces, and it only got worse. Now there were a million versions of them, laughing up at me.

  My brothers burst through the door and rushed into the bathroom. “Ivy?” Paul gasped, looking at the shattered mirror. “What happened?”

  “She’s bleeding!” Spencer said with alarm, grabbing my hand and tilting it upwards.

  I couldn’t stop crying long enough to answer them. I felt Spencer lift me up in his arms and carry me over to the bed while Paul went to get the first-aid kit. Sobbing into his chest, he wrapped his arms around me. “Shh. Don’t cry. Come on, Ives, you know how much I hate to see you cry.”

  Paul returned, and they bandaged my hand. He knelt in front of me and grabbed my face, making me meet his eyes while Spencer sat beside me, holding my hand. “What happened?” Paul asked. “And don’t you dare tell me nothing.”

  Why bother hiding it? With new tears tracking down my face, I tried to tell them what I’d seen in a clear voice, but words kept breaking. My brother’s faces morphed into twin expressions of potent rage, and they shot to their feet.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Paul growled.

  “That motherfu-” he was smacked in the chest by Paul before he could finish. “The asshole!”

  “P-p-please don’t leave me,” I whispered, shaking uncontrollably. “I need you guys.”

  They glanced at each other and heaved a sigh, but it was obvious from the tense set of their shoulders that they wanted to go out and beat the tar out of Asher. Paul tucked a blanket over my shoulders and removed my shoes while Spencer sat on the floor, so his head was level with mine, and started telling me funny stories about his short stint at a law office.

  Even cocooned by the warmth of my brothers’ love, my heart was ice cold as I fell into a tormented sleep.

  Chapter Thirty

  Charlie’s Angels In the House

  When my brothers’ couldn’t get a response out of me, they started to panic.

  Saturday morning, the only thing I was capable of doing was staring blankly at the opposite wall as I lay in bed. They tried to speak to me, but the words didn’t register in my haze. With no other options, reinforcements were called.

  Dana burst through my bedroom door, followed closely by Caleb. I couldn’t even bring myself to move, or even look at them. If I talked to anyone, it might make this nightmare real. It would mean Asher really did cheat on me, that everything he’d ever told me was a lie. It would mean I meant nothing to him.

  “That rat-bastard!” Dana growled, visibly shaking with rage. “How could he do this to her? And with that stuck-up bitch of all people?”

  “Shh, Dana, we’ll worry about what to do with the douche later. Focus on Ivy,” Caleb murmured, kneeling beside the bed and taking my hand.

  Heaving a sigh, I felt the bed dip as Dana lowered herself beside me. When she noticed I had no intention of moving, I was lifted into a sitting position, with both my best friend’s on either side of me. “Come on, Ives, snap out of it,” Dana said sadly.

  A tear coursed down my cheek, but I made no move to wipe it away.

  “Don’t cry,” Dana sniffled. “Or I’ll start.”

  “We can’t stand to see you like this,” Caleb murmured, squeezing my hand and swiping the tear.

  My phone started to ring, and I cringed, burying my face in Dana’s shoulder. Caleb stood and ruffled in my purse, extracting the phone. It hadn’t stopped ringing since last night, and Spencer had had to restrain Paul from smashing it. Caleb looked at the caller ID and slid the phone open decisively.

  “Listen dick, Ivy doesn’t want to speak to you, now or ever. So run back to your tramp and leave her alone. You have me and her brothers ready to kick your ass, so watch yourself.”

  He hung up and switched the phone off. Climbing into the bed next to me, the pair comforted me while my senses slowly returned to me after being shocked to death by what I’d witnessed yesterday. The cycling emotions of grief, despair, and anger had calmed, until I thought maybe I could speak.

  “Water,” I croaked. Dana handed me the cup immediately, and I drank it all in one pull. She returned the cup to the dresser and watched me with concern.

  “Spencer and Paul told us what happened,” she said gently. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  “I almost had to tie her to the roof of my car to keep her from going to his house,” Caleb chuckled humorlessly.

  Dana glanced at the clock on my wall and inhaled sharply. “Caleb! You’re going to be late!”

  He shrugged. “I’m not going. Ivy’s more important.”

  What? It dawned on me the next minute. Today was Saturday, the day of Caleb’s big soccer game! College reps were going to be at the game, and it was his big shot. No way was he missing it for me. “Hell no,” I coughed, clearing my throat. “You’re going to the freaking game.”

  “See? She wants you to go. C’mon Caleb, this is your chance to shine. It’ll be worse if you stay here and miss it. I’ll take care of Ivy, okay?”

  Caleb studied me before nodding his head decisively. Dana started to smile victoriously until he spoke. “Only if you two come.”

  I shrank into the headboard and Dana glared at him. He shrugged innocently. “What? I need my two best girls there. Please, Ivy? I’ll put you both in the commentator’s section. You won’t have to talk to anyone.”

  “B-but what if…what if he is there?” I whispered. “I can’t see him, Caleb.”

  Caleb shook his head adamantly. “He won’t be there. He never goes, none of the Plastics do. You just have to sit there and watch me ‘chase a little white ball’.”

  How could I say no when he was pleading like this? He’d been training for this game for ages, and I’d be a terrible friend if I stayed here to nurse my wounds instead of supporting him.

  Please God, don’t let me have a panic attack and embarrass him at his game. Please.

  “Okay,” I sighed with resignation. Caleb whooped and hugged me gently. Dana rolled her eyes and nudged me up. Getting up from bed was the hardest part. Spencer had shut the door of the bathroom tightly, obscuring the shattered mirror
from my view. Dana cast a glance at my bandage only briefly, meaning my brothers’ must have already explained my ‘episode’.

  I knew I looked like a mess. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes last night, and my hair was curled into nightmarish knots, but I didn’t care. Why bother? Tugging a knit beanie on my head and a cardigan on, I followed Dana and Caleb. Paul and Spencer were sitting on the couch, but they leapt to their feet when they saw me coming down the stairs. They were watching me like I was a fragile piece of glass or a ticking time bomb.

  Both assessments were correct.

  “We’re going to Caleb’s game,” Dana explained. “Ivy wants him to go, and he wants her there. She’ll be okay, I promise. We’ll have her home in two hours, tops.”

  I tried to smile at them reassuringly, but I think it was more of a grimace. Paul snatched Dana’s wrist as we walked by, pulling her to him and Spencer. He said something, and Spencer nodded. Dana paled and pursed her lips grimly.

  I couldn’t bring myself to care what they were talking about.

  Caleb seated me in his car, and Dana jumped in a few minutes later. They chatted easily as we drove, but I was silent, staring ahead and watching the houses pass by in a blur. A conversation I’d had with…him rose to the surface.

  “I don’t know why this is bothering you so much. My relationship with Brenda was the same with the other girls: sex. That’s it.”

  My mouth twisted. “You just used them for sex?”

  “No! They knew what I wanted, and they wanted the same. It wasn’t like I promised them fantasies of ponies and castles in the sky.”

  How stupid of me to think he was willing to give me ponies and castles in the sky.

  By the second half of the game, my head was ringing and I was curled into the fetal position on the foldable chair. Dana was smoothing my hair and telling me to hold on, keep it together till we returned home. Whenever Caleb glanced over, I’d make sure to plaster a fake smile on my face, but judging from the worried crease on his forehead, he wasn’t buying it.