by Adriana Law
“We’ll stay for a week or two to see you through this; afterwards, I really think you should come live with us.” I vaguely hear Uncle Bentley tell Colton. “There’s nothing keeping you here. It will be for the best. That’s what your parents would have wanted.”
The chair next to me creaks under Colton’s weight. “I don’t know. I’m eighteen now, which means I’m an adult. I could stay here.”
Uncle Bentley’s deep sardonic laughter sends chills down my spine. “There’s more to being an adult than age. Being an adult means being able to support yourself without any help. You’ll run through what money your parents left you in no time and be begging for my help. Hell, my oldest son is twenty- five and he can’t even make it a week without begging for money. Give someone your age any substantial amount and they go crazy. Better let me hold onto it until you’re ready.”
I see Sterling tense, but he doesn’t defend himself, instead her focuses on the bowl of cereal in front of him. He has barely eaten any of it. I know that look of defeat and acceptance of all the crap in your life. I’m sure I have the same look every time my mother makes me feel small and worthless. I’m not sure why parents do that; point out their children’s shortcomings as if we are unaware of them ourselves. Trust me. We’re well aware. It slowly eats away at our self-confidence, our self-worth. I don’t even know Sterling, but automatically I find myself wanting to protect him.
Colton shrugs a shoulder. “My parents had a savings account that should take care of the bills. Once I’m out of college I’ll be able to—”
“Nothing needs to be decided today, except funeral arrangements,” Uncle Bentley says pushing his chair back and standing. He strolls out the kitchen as if he already knows how this is going to go down. He seems to be confident in his ability to convince Colton to go back with them.
It’s hard for me to focus on anything. Sterling has pinned me with his silvery eyes and won’t stop staring. I wonder if he can smell fear?
“Babe?” I hear, but don’t respond. My shoulder is lightly shaken. “TORI!!” A finger touches my chin, turning it toward Colton. “I said … we’re going to be out for a while. You can stay here today and straighten up the house.”
It’s not a question. It’s a demand. “Yeah. Fine,” I absently agree. “Whatever you need me to do.”
“Looks like I should go take a shower if we’re going out,” Sawyer says, standing up. He aims a lazy grin and wink my way. “Care to join me? I’ll let you wash my back.”
Colton shoots his cousin a scowl. “How about leaving my girlfriend alone.”
Sterling shoves his chair away from the table. I stop breathing. There’s a loud clunk as he sets his cereal bowl noisily in the sink.
“I’m sure she’d prefer not to be exposed to Chlamydia,” I hear him mutter under his breath.
Sawyer’s clamps a hand on his brother’s shoulder in step beside him as they’re headed out of the kitchen. “Hey, that’s your thing, bro, not mine.” He aims a finger at Sterling’s crotch. “You might want to get some medicine for it though, or at least have it checked out.”
“Get off me.” Sterling shrugs his brother’s hand off. “Do us all a favor and wear some damn deodorant the next time you go running.”
Sawyer laughs out loud and I can hear the two of them arguing until their voices fade into some other part of the house.
One brother smiles and looks alive. The other looks damaged and tired. Why?
“He is such a dick,” Colton says once they’re gone.
“Your Uncle?”
“No. Sterling.”
“I don’t know I kind of felt sorry for him.”
Colton folds his arms over his chest, studying me from his chair. “What the hell? I lost my parents, Tor, I’m the one you should be feeling sorry for, not that jackass.”
“I am. I do. It just seems like his father is extra hard on him.”
“You don’t know the whole story. If you did you’d understand.”
“Okay. Then tell me the whole story.”
“Can’t. I have to get ready to pick out caskets,” he says, standing up.
My mouth drops. He’s right. I am a horrible person. “I’m sorry. It’s not important.”
He leans over me, one hand on the back of my chair, the other on the table. “Let’s just say the guy used to live with his slut-of-a-mother until she abandoned him, making him my uncle’s problem.”
“Sawyer and Sterling don’t have the same mother?” I ask, starting to understand.
“Nope. Sterling is the product of a short affair that’s haunted my uncle ever since. Uncle Bentley made a mistake and ended up with a constant reminder of it. The woman wasn’t nothing but a gold-digger who thought she’d hit the jackpot, big-time. You should have seen the getups she used to wear; she thought she had style … the name Sterling says it all. She thought she was high society but she was a joke. He’s a joke. So stopping trying to find some redeemable quality in him.” He presses a quick kiss to my lips. “Yeah, don’t look so surprised I know how your mind works. Tor, you’re incapable of being mean. If you found a lost puppy that was sick and needed to be put out of its misery, you’d try to save it. I already know this is a flaw of yours but I still love you even if you are a little naïve sometimes. There are several piles of laundry in my room. Start there. Thanks babe, you’re the best.”
Sterling is the unwanted child.
No one should ever feel unwanted.
Balancing a laundry basket full of clean clothes on my hip I pause at Colton’s parent’s bedroom, nudging it open with the tip of my foot a deep sadness washes over me. Their bed is neatly made. It’s a gorgeous ornate king-size four-poster bed with a mahogany finish. The bedding is silk: sage green and a linen color. It’s beautiful, same as everything else in the room. One of Colton’s father’s jackets and striped ties is lying out on the bed from before their flight and the room smells like his mother. Floral. Gardenias I think. I wonder how long it will take for her smell to fade from the room. My heart aches. The two of them thought they had a lifetime together, now they’ll never get a chance to see their son graduate high school or know their grandchildren. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not fair. Life selfdom is.
I quietly pull the door shut and move on to Colton’s room.
He wasn’t kidding about the laundry. I spent the better part of the morning cleaning his room and private bath; forcing me to come to this conclusion … guys are nasty slobs. I learned more about my boyfriend in those three hours than I have over the entire year we’ve dated: like he has a habit of peeing on the toilet seat and eating half of a sucker and sticking the uneaten portion in the small trash in his bathroom. This may not sound that horrible, but keep in mind he never puts a garbage bag in that trash can, so I spent fifteen minutes prying off half-eaten suckers glued to the plastic. Eventually I gave up and ran hot water in the trash can and let it soak. The suckers finally broke free and floated to the surface along with any loose hair. I found dirty boxers and socks shoved under his bed accompanied by his stacks of dirty magazines, his favorite most-visited pages dog-eared. What was under his bed had been under there for a long time because it smelled really bad. There were crusty boogers on the tiled floor of his shower, pubic hairs stuck in the hard tooth paste accumulated around the lid of the tube I used this morning, crumbs in his bed, and unidentifiable stains on his sheets.
But when I say I learned more about him in that three hours I was referring to the slew of condoms I found when I opened one of his dresser drawers to put in his clean clothes. And the other: his cell, which is usually always with him but was accidently left behind this morning providing me with the rare opportunity to snoop. I hold his cell phone in my hand now, thinking about the condoms and debating if I really want to know.
Yes. I want to know.
I scroll through his recent calls. His call log is full of girl’s names, some I know, others I have no idea who they are. I swipe a finger over the screen and his tex
t messages pop up. I sink onto the side of the bed my face blank as I read through them. I’m not surprised at what I read:
Colton: I miss you! ;)
Aubrey: I miss you too! You stopping by tonight?
Colton: Are your parents out of town?
Aubrey: Yes. We’ll have the whole house to ourselves. ;)
Colton: All right. I’ll bring the alcohol. You bring the sexy.
Aubrey: For you? Always.
The text was from Friday night, the night before Colton found out about his parents. He was with Aubrey? I know her. She knows Colton and I are together. She’s also pretty, really pretty. I sit there on the side of the bed in a state of confusion. I’m not jealous. Honestly I feel nothing when I should feel angry. Reaching up I straighten the messy bun and glance down at the simple white T-shirt and faded jeans I’m wearing. My hands aren’t shaking. My heart’s not racing. I realize in that moment I don’t feel anything for Colton.
I want more.
A helluva lot more.
I want to feel something real. I want to care what I look like when I’m around my boyfriend. I want to miss him. Obsess over him. And crave him.
The front door slams downstairs and I hear a guy’s deep voice. Oh no! They’re back! Already? I quickly ditch Colton’s cell phone where I found it and cram folded socks in the open dresser drawer, on top of his supply of condoms and the box of K-Y jelly.
There’s one more load of clothes I need get out of the dryer downstairs and then I’ll make them some lunch. Lifting the empty laundry basket I head down the stairs, freezing; one foot barely touching the wood floor in the foyer when I hear a female giggling and making mewing sounds. Careful to stay out of sight I peek around the corner into the living room on the right. I have a clear view of the sitting area and my stomach does a somersault.
Sterling is slouched on the couch. His beauty steals my breath: the dark line of lashes lowered over the breathtaking color of his eyes. The way the black T-shirt is stretched tight across his chest. Even the way he is sitting with his legs slightly spread in a lazy manner. But what is not pretty is the way the girl leaning over his chest is acting as if she can’t get close enough to him. All she has on is a short skirt and a red bra. She is blonde, beautiful and practically laying in his lap, crawling up him, giggling. Her arm is stretch up, her eager fingers making their way up over his chest and around his neck. She presses her voluminous breast (that cannot be real) against his chest, her fingers playing with the sides of his hair. She nips at his ear and he rolls a shoulder as if he doesn’t like her mouth anywhere near his ear. She talks in a pouty baby voice that grates on my nerves.
“You don’t have a playful side at all, do you?” she asks him.
He reaches up and carefully peels her arms from his neck. Never acknowledging her question he unfastens his jeans and lowers the zipper. My eyes go wide and the breath catches in my throat as his hardon springs free and he pushes her head down at it.
“Do both of us a favor and don’t talk. Suck or leave. It’s that simple.”
His words cause a chill to run through me … through the entire room. I immediately jerk my gaze back into the foyer, my heart now racing. Pressing the back of my head against the wall at the bottom of the stairs I cradle the laundry basket to me closing my eyes.
He is a bad guy.
Colton was right about him.
I was wrong.
I can hear it. What the girl is doing for him even after the way he treated her. Why? Why would any girl willingly degrade herself like this? He’d talked to her as if she has no worth.
“Mmm, you taste good,” the girl murmurs. I slap a palm over my own mouth to cover up the sound of me gagging. It’s like a horrible book that you can’t stop reading because you so desperately hope something with happen to redeem it. I glance around the corner into the living room again.
Sterling’s head is relaxed against the couch, his eyes focused on the ceiling. He has hold of a fist full of blond hair, guiding her head up and down on him.
“Deeper,” he instructs, his hips rising slightly. The muscles along his throat tense and he lifts his head staring down at her. His lips part and his breaths become heavier when he suddenly pulls her off of him.
“This was a bad idea,” he says. “You need to go.”
Sterling retrieves her discarded shirt from the end of the couch and tosses it at her.
She catches it and shoves her arms into the sleeves. “Are you serious?”
“I couldn’t be any more serious.”
“But you didn’t …”
“And I’m not. Not with you.” He stands, tucking and adjusting himself inside his jeans.
“You’re insane! You pick me up, bring me here, and then tell me to leave!” Her voice breaks as if she’s about to cry.
“Nice way of saying it, but yeah, that sums it up. You can leave now. All the begging in the world won’t change my mind.”
“Fucking asshole!” the girl snarls, sliding on shoes with heels I’d break my neck in if I ever tried to walk in them.
My heart leaps up into my throat. Sterling is headed my way. Of course it is that exact moment that my hand goes to sleep on me and the empty basket tumbles out into the foyer. I gasp, staring at the upside down basket in horror. Only able to come up with one option on such short notice I casually walk out, scooping up the basket, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. I don’t risk a glance in Sterling’s direction. Basket in hand I wait until I’m out of sight and then I take off sprinting, curse my piss-poor luck, slipping and sliding in my socks over the hardwoods through the dining room, straight for the laundry room.
Once safely inside I shut the door and lean my shoulder against it replaying the images of what I saw. Once I can breathe normally again I go over to the dryer and open it, dragging the clothes inside into the basket. After it’s all out I jab my knee up into the dryer door slamming it. I mumble a curse under my breath as I screw the lid off the Tide and pour the lid full, dumping it into the tub of the washer, pulling the dial out, setting it on heavy load. Sounds of spraying water consume the small room along with the clean smell of the detergent. I reach up sliding my hand blindly across the shelf overhead, knocking off an iron, several boxes of fabric sheets, cleaning products and everything else in my path until I get my hand on what I want.
I’m vaguely aware of the door opening behind me.
“Everything okay in here?” His voice is deep and sexy, pissing me off even more.
“Yeah. Everything is fine.” My tone lets him know he is not my favorite person. “Just washing clothes.”
He leans against the doorjamb looking skeptically down at all the mess I made on the floor.
“Are you sure? Because from where I was it sounded like you were tearing apart the room.”
“It was the shelf, something’s wrong with it. I think it’s not level or something. Everything just rolled off into the floor.”
It’s a total lie. I throw an evil glare over my right shoulder to let him know he’s not getting the truth while uncapping the Clorox, pouring it straight into the washer. I catch him staring at my rear-end and against my best attempts to not let it affect any part of my body, it causes tingles.
“What?” I snap. “Are you always this crude?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t stop. “You have a nice ass. Anybody ever told you that?”
Our gazes lock and hold for longer than appropriate with my boyfriend’s cousin. He raises an eyebrow, nodding at the washer.
“You might want to … I don’t know much about washing clothes, but I think that’s probably enough bleach.” He shows me his palms when my mouth drops open. He shrugs a shoulder with indifference. “I’m just saying.”
I jerk my head around, horrified to see I’ve been pouring bleach into the washer this entire time, a clear indication that I am NOT fine. I press a palm to the side of the washer and stare in at the rising water level, realizing I don’t even have any clothes left to wash. Sudden
ly he is there behind me, his front pressed against my backside as he reaches around and slips the jug of Clorox out of my hands, stretching an arm, sitting the jug back up on the shelf for me.
“Let’s put this down for now,” he says, his words warm near my ear. I can smell the booze and women emanating off of him. “Take deep breaths.” He demonstrates, drawing in deep slow satisfying breaths and then releasing them, showing the release with the down sweeping of his hand. He is being condescending. I can tell by his tone. He thinks I’m crazy: first the little episode in the hallway, now this. I close my eyes, shivering from his hot breath on my neck.
Oh dear lord, I am fascinated by this smartass!
I clear my throat, elbow him out of the way and bend to pick up the basket, dumping its contents on top of the dryer to fold. I turn my head and my gaze connects with his. His cocky confidence is really starting to annoy me.
