Regret (Under My Skin Book 1)

by Christina Lee

  I was wiping the steam off the mirror from my shower when I heard the front door open and the quick pitter-patter of paws on the hardwood floor. My mouth split into a grin because Brin finally brought the dog back to the apartment and it felt like a small victory.

  After changing into jeans and a T-shirt, I heard panting from the hallway. When I opened the door, the dog lunged at me and licked furiously at my hand as I attempted to rub her chin. “Hey, Tally.”

  “Tallulah,” Brin corrected, as if I’d forgotten the dog’s name.

  “That’s a mouthful. Tally sounds better.” I rubbed behind her ears. “Doesn’t it, girl?”

  “Whatever.” Brin rolled his eyes but I saw a smile tugging at his lips. “I only brought her back to the apartment because you said it was okay. We won’t stay long, I promise.”

  “Hey,” I replied, shaking my head. “Chill out. I told you, I’m not worried about it.”

  Right then, Elijah’s bedroom door opened and out walked Stewart, his hair disheveled, his shirt slightly askew. His eyes looked worn, and he scratched his head around a big yawn.

  “Elijah’s burning up. I think he might have the flu,” Stewart mentioned, heading toward the door. “Gonna run to the drug store and get some things.”

  “The flu?” Brin asked, looking as concerned as I felt. He did look a little green after that pizza last night, so I just figured it was indigestion. If it were food poisoning, we’d all be feeling it.

  “Can I do anything?” I motioned toward his room.

  “Not sure,” Stewart replied, sliding into his shoes. “Should be all set as soon as I get some medicine in him.”

  “We’ll be sure to check on him after you leave for work.” I began rummaging around in the hall linen closet to see if we had any fever reducer just in case what Stewart bought wasn’t doing the trick. But it’d been a while since any of us was sick around here, so the cupboard was pretty bare.

  “I was actually able to switch shifts with somebody today,” Stewart said as he pulled open the door. “So I can stay and take care of him myself.”

  Brin threw me a surprised glance over his shoulder. Stewart was definitely a bit too intense with Elijah, but he seemed to come through when it counted.

  After Stewart left the apartment, we heard a commotion as Tally whined and attempted to nudge her nose through the crack in the door to Elijah’s room.

  “Don’t you dare, Tallulah,” Brin called after her. But he was too late. The door sprang open and by the time we got down the hallway, Tally had already jumped on Elijah’s bed and made herself comfortable beside him in the messy sheets.

  Elijah’s hair stuck to his sweaty forehead and his eyes looked sunken in. Definitely sick. “Sorry to hear you’re not feeling well,” I said from the doorway, attempting to not breathe in any germs.

  “Ugh, hopefully, it’s only a twenty-four-hour bug,” he replied in a raspy voice.

  When Brin stepped in the room to grab hold of Tally’s collar and lead her off the bed, Elijah said, “You need to go with Nick today.”

  Brin paused as his shoulders stiffened. “I’m not going to his mom’s house.”

  “Why the hell not?” Elijah replied around a sniffle. “Her food is awesome and you need to eat at some point today. Besides, I feel bad that she’s expecting an extra person and now I’ll be a no-show.”

  Just as I was about to let Brin off the hook, he replied, “I just got word from my superintendent that I might be able to move back in by the end of the week.” My stomach dropped at that news, even though I should’ve been happy for him. “So I planned on shopping for some new sheets and other things. Besides, I have Tallulah today and—”

  “You could always bring her.” Where the hell had that thought come from? But it made perfect sense. Mom would be thrilled. “My mom loves dogs. We grew up with a golden, and she has a large backyard.”

  I had already fished my phone out of my pocket before Brin could protest any further. “Hey, Mom, guess what?”

  I walked into the hallway to ask her permission but didn’t miss how Elijah stuck his tongue out at Brin like a kindergartener. Brin threw him the middle finger salute as he coaxed the dog out of his room and shut the door.

  Just as I predicted, Mom was all for it, even more excited than I had expected. “My mom is really looking forward to meeting Tally,” I announced when I walked into the living room. Brin was standing near the front windows looking out onto the street.

  “Dude, I’m not going to your mom’s house, okay?” Brin replied and I could feel my face fall. What the hell did I expect? “Can you stop trying so fucking hard? So you sucked me off. Now we’re even or whatever—” He twirled his finger in the air for effect. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  A storm of emotions swirled violently inside my chest. I wanted to shake him and then kiss the shit out of him. Sink down in front of him and make him understand with my mouth and tongue and hands.

  “Jesus. No, that’s not what I want to hear.” I balled my fists and paced around the coffee table. “We’ll never be even—not for what I did back then, okay? I was a fucking coward.”

  His breath hitched in his throat as he stared at me.

  I took a step toward him and lowered my voice a notch. “But I’m not going to lie. Every single cell in my body wants to do it again. To drop to my fucking knees because if anyone needs their cock worshiped, it’s you.” Brin inhaled sharply through his nose. Holy fuck, my heart was going crazy. I took a calm, steadying breath. “And yeah, part of me hopes like hell we can be on friendlier terms with each other—even though I don’t deserve it.”

  “Damn straight,” he snapped as he gripped the window ledge.

  I nodded and bit my lip, all of the air deflated from my lungs. I could feel my shoulders dropping, the shame hot on my neck like a furnace.

  “Thing is, my mom…she gets lonely and she loves having company. It’s nice to be able to bring a friend home with me.” It made me wish my mom’s parents were still alive and her brother lived nearby.

  I wouldn’t admit that I needed somebody to bring along as well. Not that my mom and I weren’t close, but we treaded lightly around each other—as if neither wanted to create more waves after all we’d been through as a family. Not only that but it was also what my parents’ house represented to me. It felt suffocating, like I was being smothered by all the memories. Even years later—after we’d relocated. But all the emotions were still there, buried in the very foundation.

  “Don’t you have any other friends?” Brin asked in a calmer tone.

  “Yeah, sure,” I replied in a defeated voice. If he was set on it, no reason to guilt him. Christ, I needed to chill the hell out. I lifted my cell and turned my back. “I’ll see if Darren is around.”

  But before I could scroll to his number, I felt Brin move closer and Tally nudging at my leg with her firm snout.

  “Fine, I’ll go. Only this once,” he mumbled. “As a thank you for letting me stay here or whatever.”

  All my muscles loosened and I was finally able to take a deep and calming breath.

  “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” I replied, heading toward my bedroom. “We’ll leave in about an hour.”

  15

  Brin

  I insisted on driving my car because of the dog. My back seat was already covered with a ratty blanket Tallulah could lie on and I had some toys with me as well.

  Nick’s family lived in Euclid near where we both went to high school. I had moved clear across town after college, no way I figured he would too. And end up my best friend’s roommate.

  “So where is your engraving business?” I asked, mostly to be polite, because the silence was stifling. It felt like we were walking on eggshells around each other again and he was sorry he’d ever asked me.

  Sure, the mood created between us was my fault, but I wasn’t sorry for what I said back at the apartment. Mostly.

  I was a fucking coward.

  Why the hell d
id he have to be so conciliatory all the time? Couldn’t he just remain an asshole and we could call it a day?

  “Off East 185th,” he replied without looking at me. “It’s a busy street and we get some decent traffic.”

  “Do you service the surrounding schools?” I thought I remembered something about his father supplying boxes of trophies, and it all made sense now. The whole glass case outside of the Jefferson High office was probably filled with the awards his father had personally engraved.

  “Yeah, we still maintain those long-standing accounts. But honestly, business has been dwindling for years,” he remarked. He was being honest and keeping it real between us, and truth be told, I appreciated that about him. All of our conversations have been pretty forthright to date and it only muddied the waters further. “You can get stuff engraved for cheaper online, and though I’ve built a website to try to keep us current, we really can’t compete.”

  “Guess I never thought about that,” I replied, trying to catch his eye, though I didn’t exactly know why. Maybe to show him that I understood. “Bummer. Does your mom work there too?”

  “She stops in once or twice a week, but she’s also a home health aide and loves working with the elderly,” he said. “Her pay isn’t that great though…”

  He drifted off and I filled in the words for him. So I need to make sure she’s taken care of. Which made me wonder whether or not he had any other siblings. Certainly not any that I remembered in school.

  “How about your family?” he asked suddenly, flipping the tables on me.

  “What about them?” I asked, trying not to sound defensive. God, I was a fucking headcase when I was around him. He had just shared some private things and I wasn’t willing to do the same. What the hell would it cost me at this point anyway?

  “How are they doing?” he asked, finally looking at me, and I’d admit, the authenticity I spotted in his eyes helped my shoulders unwind. I leaned back in the seat and relaxed my leg muscles as well as my death grip on the steering wheel. “When you used to tutor me, you mentioned your dad and brother a couple of times.”

  “I did?” I asked as I changed lanes on the freeway.

  “Yeah, you said something about your brother being interested in sports and your dad popping a boner about it or something.” Shit, now I remembered how nervous I was around Nicholas Dell and how I’d ramble on about stuff simply to find common ground with him. I liked him—had a goddamn crush on him, of course—but found him easy to be around, too.

  Away from the team, it felt different, but in the lunchroom or in halls between classes I didn’t even attempt to greet him because I knew those jocks stuck mostly to their own kind and no way they’d want their nerdy tutor acknowledging them. With Nicholas’s other teammates, there wasn’t much small talk when I met with them, only worksheets and problem solving. Some tried to get me to do the assignments for them, but I didn’t play that. It was a slippery slope I didn’t want to go down, especially so close to graduation.

  After so many sessions with Nicholas, I got the impression his academic problems weren’t so much that he didn’t understand the work rather that he seemed distracted and anxious about being able to graduate. I definitely wondered what was going on in that brain of his, but I never broached the topic. I didn’t want to cross any lines or scare him away.

  Nick cleared his throat, bringing me back to his question. “My brother will be graduating from Akron U next year, he’s on the football team, and my parents are definitely proud.”

  “How about you?” he asked, angling his torso sideways a bit more to face me.

  I threw him a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?”

  “Are they proud of you for—I don’t know—working with animals, doing something you seem to love?” I didn’t know what he was getting at, or if his question was innocent enough.

  “Dunno, I guess. I essentially babysit and groom dogs for a living. I’m not a vet tech like I first thought I might be. Christ,” I said, thinking back to that one asshole veterinarian I loathed for acting like some demigod. “But I suppose they’re cool. My mom asks about my job, my dad—not so much.”

  “No?” he asked, his eyebrows scrunched together. Though Dad did inquire about Tallulah this past weekend, so I supposed that was a start.

  “It’s this exit, right?” I asked to change the subject, before his probing inquiries touched on something too uncomfortable.

  He stared at me for a long beat before he replied, “Yeah, of course.”

  It was a ridiculous question since both of our families still lived in the same community where the high school was located, but he answered it anyway.

  When we pulled into his driveway in a modest neighborhood with well-kept houses, I realized it wasn’t that much different than my childhood home. My parents lived at the other end of the moderately-sized community, but I always assumed I was so far removed from the likes of Nicholas Dell.

  Except I suddenly remembered that Nick transferred to my school in the eleventh grade. “Where did you guys used to live…before moving here?”

  His shoulders stiffened. “Uh, Chardon.”

  I didn’t have a chance to ask anything more because his mom exited the house and stood on the porch greeting us.

  16

  Brin

  Nicholas favored Mrs. Dell, who was an attractive lady with dark hair and light eyes. She approached us as we exited the car and hugged Nick tightly while I opened the backseat door to let the dog out. Her eyes lit up as soon as she spotted Tallulah and she warmly greeted me before bending down to scratch her behind the ears.

  “Such a pretty girl,” she cooed to her. “How about you run around in the backyard?”

  Tallulah’s tail wagged excitedly as we followed Nick’s mom to the gate on the side of the house that led to the yard. Tallulah immediately took off chasing a squirrel.

  “Too bad about her owner,” Mrs. Dell remarked, as we stood watching her. “It’s nice to have a dog around here again. It’s been a while.”

  Nick reached over and squeezed his mom’s shoulder in an almost conciliatory manner—as if he could help mollify her emotions. His comment about making sure she was taken care of suddenly made sense. I’d never seen him in a caretaker role and it certainly gave me a new vantage point.

  “I volunteer at the shelter,” I mentioned. “So if you ever want to adopt, let me know.”

  “Not Tally, though,” Nick replied. I threw him a puzzled look. “I think she already belongs to you.”

  My breath caught as a sudden warmth filled my stomach—and not only from the idea of providing Tallulah a home.

  Mrs. Dell led us through the back door into the house. The scent of Italian spices immediately hit my nostrils. “That smells amazing.”

  “Told you so,” Nick said from behind me. “My mom is a great cook.”

  Mrs. Dell smiled over her shoulder at the compliment. “I’m just getting ready to pull it out of the oven.”

  The living room was classically decorated with a large tan couch and two roomy chairs arranged in front of a fireplace. My gaze was immediately drawn to a large display of photos that adorned an entire cream wall. I stared at all the photos of a younger Nicholas, as well as his late father whom I now recognized from Jefferson High. He was a polished, older man who was always talking to the coach and very invested in the sports at school, which totally made sense now that I knew about the family business.

  My eyes skimmed over to a large center snapshot of a cute little girl with dark curls and a summer dress. In fact, now that I thought about it, most of the pictures in this display were of her.

  One of the photos that caught my immediate attention was of the girl sitting on Nicholas’s lap as he affectionately kissed the top of her head. He looked around the same age as the kid I knew back in high school. There was something about the warm and loving image that made me pause and zero in with laser focus. Nick looked open and vibrant and happy, more so than I’d ever seen him th
en or now. He didn’t appear to have those same shadows in his eyes, but what the hell could I tell from a simple snapshot?

  Mrs. Dell patted my shoulder. “That’s our Zoey. She would’ve loved playing with the dog today.”

  “Oh, is she…” I didn’t know exactly what I was asking. I quickly did the math in my brain. She’d be a teenager by now and probably at her mom’s house for dinner too, so maybe she was out of town?

  “She died when she was three years old,” she said matter-of-factly but I still heard the catch in her voice.

  I caught wind of a faint sound behind me like a cross between a sob and a protest and looked over my shoulder at Nick’s receding form as he swiftly left the room. Something about the primal noise made my chest ache.

  “Nicky, honey,” his mom said in a concerned voice.

  “It’s okay,” he replied in a strained tone from the kitchen. “I’ll check on the lasagna.”

  I was at a loss for words as I turned to stare at his mom. Her gaze was cloaked with heartache and I suddenly felt like I was intruding on a private moment even though I wanted to ask more questions.

  How did she die? Was that why Nick always seemed so distracted and distant?

  I couldn’t bear to disappoint my dad again.

  Was that what his confession meant? Because his parents had lost a child? I shook away my thoughts because it didn’t matter. We weren’t anything to each other except a couple of people who had messed around and had a shitty history together. Only it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up my terse and unforgiving stance toward him when I continued to witness him being authentic and vulnerable in certain situations.