by Laura Ward
“You’re beautiful.” He was standing again, his arm wrapped around my back, his fingers brushing my hair away from my face. He was fully dressed, the rasp of his clothes strange against my skin. I still felt exposed, but not in a frightening way. It was a comfort to be so bare in front of him and so wanted.
“You make me feel beautiful,” I told him, pressing up on my toes to kiss him as I let go of the hook on the door and dropped my arms around his shoulders. I’d always felt pretty around guys and they made me feel sexy, but Ben was the first guy to ever make me feel beautiful.
He lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around him as he backed up toward his bed, his footsteps sure in his familiar surroundings. We kissed, and when he sat down on the edge of the bed, I reached for his shirt, pulling it up and off him. The ink across his chest and arms was bright and vivid, stealing my breath as it always did when I saw it in its entirety.
My fingers traced across the curves of color. His muscles twitched from my soft touches as I took my time looking at him. Finally, I pushed against his shoulders and he let me force him to lie back across the bed. When I reached for the button on his jeans, he smiled.
“Still feeling eager?” he asked.
“Not eager. Still desperate.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I thought I might have taken the edge off a little.”
I huffed out a laugh and stood so I could yank his jeans off. “Not even close. I think you just stoked the flames.”
He lifted his hips so I could pull his boxers off. “Really? How big is this fire?”
I set his shoes, socks, and pants on the chair where he could find them. “Huge,” I answered. “Raging.”
“Like a bonfire?” he asked, putting his hands behind his head.
Fuck he was gorgeous like that, naked on the bed. Ready for me.
I grabbed a condom out of my bag and climbed over top of him, straddling his lap. “More like a wildfire. Out of control. All consuming.”
I tore open the condom and when I started to roll it onto him, his hands went to my hips as his breath hissed in through his teeth. I used my hand to guide him inside me, watching his face as I slowly took him in. His expression was as open and exposed as I’d felt pressed up against the door.
At that moment, I knew I had as much power over him as he had over me. I also knew it was a power I would never abuse. Because this was Ben and he was more than I deserved.
I leaned over to hold onto his shoulders as I moved on top of him. His fingers dug into the skin of my waist and he pumped his hips into me. He reached up to wrap his hand around the back of my neck to pull me down for a kiss. Every thrust of his hips, every slide of his tongue, was like he was surrendering another piece of himself to me.
“Make it slow,” he rasped against my lips. “Make it last.”
With those words, I believed he wasn’t only talking about tonight or this moment. He was talking about us. And I had to be careful, because if I dented even the smallest part of his heart, it would break me.
Chapter Seventeen
Julie
Julie,
I would very much like to see you. I can meet you anytime. Should we say this Friday? Tell me where and when.
Jed
I stared at the email on my phone, rereading the words I had already memorized. Turns out the Jed Jacobs on my birth certificate was the same one from Excess Wreckage. And even more surprising? His response came not even twenty-four hours after I sent the email. I couldn’t believe I had the opportunity to meet my dad, to know who he was. My feelings about the whole thing were a jumbled mess of uncertainty. The only thing I really knew about him was that he was the lead guitarist of Excess Wreckage and I couldn’t imagine ever thinking of him as anything else. Jed’s celebrity wasn’t what had me on edge. The thing that worried me was that I would finally get the chance to ask him why he left me, and I could only hope his answers weren’t as bad as Nikki’s.
“What’s up?” Taren asked. She pulled out a chair and sat next to me at the table. She had a plate of food in front of her but looking at it made me feel queasy.
“I’m not even sure where to start.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to ward off the upcoming headache I felt brewing. Or was it heartache?
Lex pulled out the chair next to Taren, placing her tray filled with grilled chicken, risotto, and salad in front of her. “Start with what? Studying? I find it’s best to start with buying the book. Then you open it. Give it a shot.” She winked as she picked up her fork and knife and sliced into the meat.
“Oh, ha! You’re a regular Amy Schumer, aren’t you?” I returned with a laugh. “It’s family stuff. No biggie,” I said, waving my hand like I was swatting a fly. “Turns out I wasn’t adopted. Still very much unwanted though.”
In unison, their jaws dropped. Ten minutes later, they had been filled in. All the gory details were relayed and while I hoped the truth would get easier to accept as time went on, it sounded worse when I had to tell someone else.
“Holy shit,” Taren spoke first. “Your mom is the nastiest human on the planet.”
I nodded, blowing out a puff of air. “It’s disturbing I share DNA with her. It was bad enough that some of her worst habits have rubbed off on me...but to be related to her?” I mimicked a shudder. “What I thought was the truth for the last twenty-one years was easier to believe than this newest version. I mean, who lies about something like that? And what about my dad? How could he leave me with someone like her?”
Lex reached out to put her hand on my arm. “You have to talk to Jed. Hear his side of the story. Your mom has proven that she can’t be trusted. Why even believe what she said to you about your father until you talk to him?” She gave my arm a squeeze and let go, pushing her now cold plate of food away. “Listen to what he has to say. You can decide where you go from there.”
I nodded. “I know I have to. That’s why I sent him the email. To ask him questions. I never expected that he’d want to see me in person, but I think I’m going to do it. He said he was free on Friday.” An imperfect cuticle became my focus as I picked away my nervous energy. “If nothing else, maybe it’ll give me some closure.”
“I think that’s the right choice. Would you like us to come for support?” Taren asked.
My smile was small, but my heart was full at her offer. “No. But thank you. I need to do this alone.”
Lex reached over again, this time covering my hand to stop me from mangling my cuticles. “What did Ben say about all of this?”
I winced. “That’s the other thing.” I grabbed Lex’s water glass and chugged half of it down in loud gulps before setting it down with a loud thunk. “I haven’t told him.”
“Jules...” Lex started.
I put my hand up to beg her to let me explain. “What would be the point of telling him? I wouldn’t even know where to start. He would feel sorry for me, and I don’t want that. Besides, I don’t want to worry him about this. You know how guys are. They want to fix stuff. And I don’t think there’s any way to fix my family. I need to talk to Jed first. Maybe once I have all the facts, I’ll know how to tell Ben.”
Lex’s eyebrows formed one long line as she frowned at my reasoning.
“Stop your fretting,” I scolded her. “You’ll get ugly forehead wrinkles and be paying for Botox in two years if you don’t cut it out.”
Taren’s mouth opened, but my outstretched palm stopped her. “I’ll tell him. I will. I need to get my head wrapped around this first. In the meantime, my hand will be wrapped around his big dick and my lips—”
“And I’m out.” Lex stood up, grabbing her plate and utensils. “Heart-to-heart time is over once the cock talk starts. I’m nuking my food and studying. Find me if you want to talk about anything other than sex, m’kay?”
“Not likely, but okay,” I answered. She turned to smirk at me and I poked my tongue against the side of my cheek in a suggestive manner.
Taren laughed as L
ex walked away still shaking her head. Lightening the mood was always my go-to when things got too serious. Acting inappropriately was what I did best, and making people laugh ultimately made me happy. I gave the people what they expected—the smartass, the life of the party, the girl who was up for anything. It was so easy to fall into my default behavior when emotions got too much to handle. But was that who I was?
Since meeting Ben, I was beginning to wonder if everything about me was a disguise, a type of armor I wore so that no one would ever know the real Jules. I didn’t even know who I was. Could I ever have more than the shell of a life I’d given myself? Was it even possible for me to be more than a sexy body and a pretty face? Could I be a daughter who was loved? Or better yet, the girl worth falling in love with?
Everything I believed about myself was being challenged. Partly because of my mom and her lies, and partly because of Ben and all of his truths.
And that was why I needed to deal with my family issues separately from Ben. It wasn’t like I was lying to him. I needed our time together to remain exactly as it was.
Intense.
Real.
Untainted by my sordid past.
And the closest thing to love that I had ever known.
***
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but we are getting our asses kicked,” I muttered in Darren’s ear.
Darren scoffed. “If you’d keep your balls out of the gutter, we’d score.” He held my gaze for a good ten seconds before his smile won out and laughter shook his body. “I don’t even know how I kept a straight face when I said that. You, balls, and score all in one sentence. Classic.”
“Don’t forget the gutter,” I teased, ruffling his hair. “That’s where my mind is ninety percent of the time.”
It was another night at the bowling alley with Lex, Taren, William, and Stacey. We each teamed up with our buddy, and Darren and I were so far beyond last place there was no hope of catching up.
“You want any?” Taren asked, holding out a basket of fries to me.
She had squirted a gross amount of ketchup onto her cheese fries. “That’s foul, T. Not only did you ruin perfectly good junk food, but it already had one thousand calories from the cheese alone.”
Taren pulled a long fry, covered in cheese and ketchup, off her plate and shoved it into her mouth, moaning. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“You do you, girl. I’m just sayin’.” I made a gagging noise in response.
“You’ve made that noise a few times before, I bet,” Darren whispered in my ear.
My gag turned into a choking cough. “Darren! We are amongst friends. All blowie talk is for when we’re in private.”
He shrugged and motioned with his chin to William and Stacy. Stacy sat on William’s lap, sharing fries and stealing kisses. “They’re too into each other to listen to what we’re saying.”
He was probably right. That kind of sweet and innocent PDA would have made me nauseous in the past, but now I was in their club. I knew how it felt to crave the presence and touch of someone else, so much so that everyone and everything else failed to exist when you were together.
“Excuse me? William? Stacy?” Both jerked their heads up at the sound of my voice.
Stacy, as usual, was a riot of color. Aside from her blue glasses and pink lipstick, she was dressed in bright purple today—her t-shirt, shorts, shoes, and socks all in various shades of violet and lavender. The only other color she wore was the red of her beloved shoelaces.
I cleared my throat. “How’s everything going? By the looks of it, I’d say you two have mastered dating. And kissing.” I winked at them.
Stacy’s face fell, and my stomach followed. Shit. What did I say? Sad and Stacy should never go together. She was like a virtual ray of sunshine, always smiling, teasing, or laughing. I looked to Lex for help.
“We met with Stacy’s dad last night,” Lex explained, watching her buddy. “He was not receptive to them dating. They can only see each other at Best Buddies events or other group sponsored activities.”
“He called us stupid,” Stacy whispered, her lower lip trembling.
My eyes widened, and I felt heat crawl up my neck to my face. “What the actual fuck?” When William’s mouth pulled tight at my swearing, I said. “Sorry. I meant to say, what? Why would he say something so awful?”
“Her dad is worried about her. With me,” William explained, his face calm, but his tone flat. He had close-cropped dark hair like his cousin Alec, but while Alec was muscular and athletic like a football player, William was all beaming smiles and cuddly hugs. “He thinks I will hurt her. But I would not. Not ever.” He shook his head vehemently. “We are meant to be together. We are tied together with the red string of fate, just like Alec and Taren. Yup, yup.”
“My dad says we can’t date because if we make love,” Stacy’s voice dropped lower at the last two words and her big brown eyes glistened, “We will make a baby. He says we are too slow to raise a baby and that the baby might turn out like us.” Her voice cracked as she struggled to keep from crying. William rubbed her back and she looked up at him, her soft round cheeks lifting as she tried to smile. “But we are not even talking about doing that! We only want to keep each other company.”
“They tried to explain that to her dad,” Lex added. “I did too. But I think because William is a few years older than Stacy and has his own apartment that her dad is extra concerned. I offered to chaperone their dates, but he still said no.”
“It’s not fair.” Stacy wiped away the tears that were now sliding down her cheeks. “My whole life I’ve watched my sisters date, fall in love and get married. I know I am different, but I want to be my own kind of person. William lets me do that. Why won’t my dad?”
“We will find a way, my honey.” William kissed her cheek.
Damn, they were so freaking cute together.
“What about moving out?” Darren asked.
“I’m on a waitlist for a spot in a group home,” Stacy answered. “Why?”
Darren scratched his chin, eyebrows furrowed. “Because if you can live on your own, you can make your own decisions.”
“Darren, you are smart. Yup, yup. That is why you are in school. What do you study?” William asked.
Darren shook his head. “I don’t go here, man. Never applied. I keep myself busy rebuilding computers at home.”
“You do not like school?” William asked.
Darren’s head shook slightly as he thought about his answer. “College was never an option for me. The counselor at my high school told my parents I was too dumb to get into a university.”
“Too dumb?” I smacked my hand on the table. “They actually said that?”
Darren turned his attention on me. “They used fancy clinical words,” he explained, “but that was the gist of it. I mean, look at me.” He gestured to himself and raised his eyebrows. “Listen to the way I talk. To them, I sound dumb.”
Across the table Taren’s eyes were pinched, her fist pressed to her mouth. Lex’s face was hard, her lips flattened in a disapproving line.
“That’s ridiculous. You’ve got more smarts in your pinky than I do in my whole brain,” I argued. “Why would someone ever assume you weren’t intelligent because of the way you look or sound?”
Darren sighed heavily and gave me an indulgent smile. “Jules, I love you, you know I do. But you judge people all the time based on how they look. You’ve dumped guys in less time than it takes to cross Route 1 because of whatever perceived imperfection they have. It’s the same for me.”
I bit the inside of my lip, trying not to take his words personally because I knew Darren would never hurt me on purpose. “I know I’m an insensitive bitch, but it’s not the same. Not at all. Judging someone by their usefulness as dating material is not the same as judging someone’s ability to live life. It’s not fair that they’d treat you that way. Why not fight back?”
He shrugged. “They see me in my ch
air, but they never want to look close enough to see the real me. They hear me slur my words. They see my thin legs and useless arm. And they think my brain must be useless too. People take one look at me and nine times out of ten, they’ve already made up their minds about who I am and what I can do. Once I hit high school, the powers that be dumped me in all special ed classes. I was never expected to do much aside from show up.”
“What about your parents? They just let that happen?” I asked, incredulous.
His sad smile said everything that I already knew...not all parents were equipped to raise kids. Especially kids with special needs.
“It’s the way it goes in the real world for people like me,” he finally said. “It sucks, but I also know the world doesn’t owe me anything because my DNA is fucked up. I guess I could have fought a little harder, but sometimes the fight isn’t one that can be won. I have to accept that this is the life I’ve been given.”
“Bullshit.” I stood up and roughly grabbed my ball from the return before turning around to look at him. “You deserve so much more.”
Facing the lane, I felt my already flushed face burn hotter as I took the few steps forward, my arm swinging back and then releasing the ball. My anger was like a lightning storm, each furious thought a spark, fueling the fire of my indignation as the ball flew out of my hand.
I wasn’t sure why Darren being underestimated made me so mad, but I was shaking with rage. The injustice of someone, anyone, treating Darren poorly made me feel like a vigilante in need of a target. I wanted to break something.
The ball went down the center of the lane before veering to the side and tumbling into the gutter.
After my second ball, I returned to the chairs where everyone was sitting in silence, our fun ruined by the sad conversation. Darren’s words still rattled around in my brain. You judge people all the time based on how they look.
Maybe I was part of the problem. I was as superficial as everyone else. I scraped my palms down the side of my face wishing I could change my past. And Darren’s future.
