I nodded, my voice caught in my throat.
All this time, Shannon had been visiting Miss Iris. All this time, her grandmother was a patient at Twin Oaks, and I never asked to know any better.
“She’s beautiful,” I whispered, feeling tears prick my eyes.
“Yeah. She’s having a bit of a hard time right now. My poor girl,” Miss Iris said, her crocheting needles clicking together as she started on her work again.
“Is that so?” I asked, hoping she would shed some light on the situation.
Obviously, she had no idea Shannon and I had a thing. Maybe she would open up to me about Shannon in casual conversation.
“Yeah. She confessed to me not long ago that a young man had pushed himself on her.”
I clenched my eyes tightly, remembering how broken she was. How hard she had cried in my arms when she told me her story.
“He seemed like such a nice boy, too. He came to my house to pick her for prom, and I approved. Sometimes, I think it’s my fault for letting her go out with him. I should have known better to let her mess around with one of the rich boys,” she continued, gossiping while she worked her fingers through the yarn. “His family lived on the lake in our town. A gorgeous house.”
I sat on the bed, my eyes moving over the many pictures of Shannon.
Shannon with braids and missing teeth.
Shannon with a big smile on her face and curls in her hair.
Shannon holding a trophy for junior varsity volleyball.
Then I reached a photo that made me pause.
It was Shannon and her prom date. Except the date had been cut from the photo and only his arm around her shoulders was still visible. They were standing on the front porch of an old run-down mobile home. She smiled into the camera, her red curls pinned on top of her head in an updo, and her eyes popping against her green prom dress.
She was young and beautiful.
Happy and unbroken.
But it wasn’t her beauty that had inflicted the massive amount of pain thumping around my chest.
It was the arm of the person standing next to her. He was obviously wearing a tux. I could tell that by looking at the part of his leg still visible in the photo, but he must have removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves a bit because his arm was visible. On that arm was a birthmark I knew well.
A crescent-shaped mark that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
He was her prom date … the asshole who had raped her and altered her forever.
And that arm belonged to my best friend.
It was Jonathan.
The only guy in the world I gave a shit about had been the one to destroy the woman I loved all those years ago.
THE YACHT WAS EMPTY AND DARK, anchored at the end of the dock like a shady ghost ship full of immorality.
I walked down the dock, my fists clenching at my sides and my heart feeling hard and empty. The water lapped at the posts holding the dock up, filling the air around me with the sounds of slapping and seagulls.
Once I made it on board, I walked across the top deck, heading to the exact spot I knew I would find him.
He was lounging next to the fire wearing a sweater since it was a cool day in Charleston. Winter would be coming soon, and the heat of the South was starting to wind down. He stared at the sky, and I knew his eyes were closed behind his shades.
He was relaxing.
Enjoying his life as if he had never done any wrong.
Well, I knew differently.
I knew he was a fucking monster disguised as a friend.
I stepped up next to his lounge chair, tapping the bottom of it with my shoe. He jerked, ripping his shades from his eyes and squinting up at me.
“Holy shit, man. You scared the fuck out of me.” He slid his shades back on and sat up. “What’s up, man? Where have you been?” he asked.
He was pretending nothing was wrong, but I knew the second I introduced Shannon, he knew who she was. You didn’t just forget a woman you raped. You couldn’t strike something like that from your mind, and if you could, you were colder than expected.
“It was you,” I said, feeling the burn of fury behind my eyes.
I wanted to pounce—rip him apart—show him what kind of pain he had inflicted.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about,” I snapped.
Again, he pulled his shades from his face, his eyes moving over my expression before he set them on the table at his side.
“Look, man, I don’t know what she told you, but I can assure you it was consensual.”
I sniffed. “You’re a piece of shit. You know it wasn’t consensual.”
He chuckled. “You can’t rape the willing, man. She was wet. She wanted it.”
My fists clenched at my sides as I struggled to control myself.
“You son of a bitch. You knew she wouldn’t press charges. You fucking knew it.”
He laughed. “You’re seriously worked up over this? Look, she chased me all through high school. I took her out. Showed her a good time. It was the least I could do, considering …” He held his hands out at his sides as if he was referring to her size and calling her large. “I had no idea you were into big girls, man, but props. She was an excellent fuck.”
I snapped, jumping on him like a wild animal.
I beat him in the face, throwing punches as if he hadn’t been my best friend for the past few years… as if he was a total stranger.
I had promised I wouldn’t kill him, but I hadn’t promised I wouldn’t beat the living shit out of him.
He didn’t fight back, but I only got a few hits in before the police were pulling me off him. They slung me to the side, and I sat up just in time to see Jonathan tossed onto his stomach on the deck as he got handcuffed from behind.
“Jonathan Reins, you’re under arrest for …”
The sound of the police officer’s voice faded away. Jonathan locked eyes with me, and I smirked, letting him know I was the one who had called and reported him.
Shannon was too afraid to press charges. She wanted no part of going to court and reliving her past, but I wasn’t okay with him walking the streets as a free man. If he wasn’t going to prison for hurting the woman I loved, he was at least going to serve time for selling guns, drugs, and everything else I could pin on him.
And as they pulled him to a standing position and began to walk him toward the dock, I smiled up at him from my spot and said the words I knew would haunt him the entire time he was behind bars.
“Keep your ass dry in prison, pretty boy. Remember, if it’s wet, you want it.”
TWENTY-TWO
SHANNON
I WAS MISERABLE WITHOUT HIM.
My heart was broken, and I hurt even worse knowing I hurt him. I was a crappy liar, which was why I refused to see him. I could lie through text message, but if he had asked me about my feelings in person, I know I would have never been able to look him in the eye and tell him the biggest lie I’d ever told.
I don’t feel the same.
It wasn’t true. I loved him so much it burned in my stomach … so much there was no longer any pleasure in it, and knowing he was left standing in the dark, clueless to what happened between us made me feel like the most terrible person in the world, but I couldn’t tell him the one person he trusted in the world was a terrible human being. It felt wrong.
So I ran, leaving him behind and breaking my own heart while breaking his.
A week passed, and I didn’t work. I didn’t sleep, and eating made my stomach nauseated. I had once heard heartache would make you physically ill. I thought it was bullshit, but the fact was I was sick with depression and finding it hard to get out of bed.
Devin and Lilly lied for me, but neither of them knew what was going on. I refused to tell anyone.
I didn’t visit Grammy as much as I should have because I was afraid I would run into him. I basically stopped living my life.
Lilly came in the door from work, tossing her purse onto the counter with a sigh. She had recently found out she was pregnant and was tired all the time. I felt bad that I was missing work and she was covering my hours, but I promised to return the following day.
With a baby on the way, Devin and Lilly were sure to find a place of their own soon. Without Lilly and Matthew, and with Grammy in the nursing home, there would be no one.
Thinking of that made me feel even lonelier.
“You have baby powder between your cleavage,” she said, pointing at my chest.
I looked down between my tits and using my finger I swiped up the white powder from my skin and sucked it from my finger. “It’s not baby powder, it’s powdered sugar.”
Lilly’s eye went wide, and her mouth popped open. “Wow, you’re on a whole other level over there, girl.”
I nodded, agreeing one hundred percent.
“Still not ready to discuss it?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
I wasn’t trying to be rude to Lilly, but I couldn’t make anything I said sound nice. I had broken my filter and my give a damn on the same night.
An hour later, she and Devin left for the night, going to spend some time with his family. She had been doing that a lot, and I found myself alone much more than I wanted to be. I would park my car in a different part of the apartment’s parking lot in case anyone decided to pay me a visit, and I ignored the phone and the doorbell, which sucked big time when I needed to go out because I had to walk all the way across the apartment complex to get to my car.
So when I ran out of ice cream and decided I needed it for my night alone with Netflix, that was what I had to do. With a pair of pink pajama bottoms, a black pullover sweater, and a pair of flip-flops, I left my apartment. Reaching up, I tied my long hair into a somewhat decent bun and turned to lock the door. Once the door was locked, I turned and started toward my car. When I did, I ran into a familiar wall of heat.
His fingers wrapped around my arms, holding me up, and I froze.
“Shannon,” he whispered. “Please just let me talk.”
I didn’t look up at him. I couldn’t because I knew the minute I did, I would break for him. Instead, my eyes caught on the collar of his shirt and remained there.
“I know why you ran away,” he said, making my spine straighten. “I’m so sorry I took you there. That you had to see him again.”
His palms smoothed up and down my arms, trying to comfort me, but my anxiety had reached such high levels it was seeping out of my scalp. I wasn’t sure I would ever be comfortable again.
He knew.
So everyone else would know, as well.
I would never be able to hide behind the veil of secrecy again.
“I wish you would have told me instead of leaving that night, but I get it. I totally get it,” he said.
His best friend.
His brother.
He said Jonathan was like family to him, and I couldn’t expect him to turn his back on his family for me. I wouldn’t ask him to do that, but I also wouldn’t continue to be around him. I couldn’t.
“Say something. Please.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat. I had so many questions, but my brain was spinning, and I couldn’t latch on to one particular one.
Then finally.
“How did you find out?” I asked.
He cupped my chin and tilted my face to his. I closed my eyes, still afraid to look at him.
“Look at me, Red,” he whispered. “I want to see your beautiful eyes on me.”
My lashes fluttered, a tear slipping past them and riding over my cheek. He wiped it away and pressed a kiss on my check. When I opened my eyes, he was looking down at me with a sad smile.
“There she is.” His grin grew. “It was your grandmother.”
I jerked. “What about her?”
“I visit her all the time. Except I had no idea she was your grandmother. You see, I don’t actually visit anyone at Twin Oaks. A while back, I got in trouble for drinking and driving. I was actually doing my community service there. I just finished up last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shook his head. “I was embarrassed. Anyway, I would visit Iris once or twice a week and chat with her. She’s a special lady.”
I smiled and nodded my head. “That she is.”
And then I realized something.
“Oh my God, you’re the gentleman she’s always talking about.”
He looked confused.
I explained. “She tells me all the time a man stops by and flirts with her. I thought she was just talking out of her head. I didn’t think there was seriously a person stopping and visiting her. “
He chuckled. “Yeah. That’s me. I stopped by to see her last week, and she accidentally knocked over a little box full of pictures. I saw pictures of you, and she told me you were her granddaughter. Then I came across your prom picture.”
Again, I jerked, feeling as though he had hit me across the face with his sentence.
“I’d know that fucking birthmark on his arm anywhere,” he said.
I nodded, closing my eyes against the tears and pushing them down my cheeks.
“I have nightmares about that birthmark,” I whispered.
He pulled me in, holding me close to his chest, and let me cry on his shoulder.
“I didn’t want you to know. You said he was like your brother. I’m so sorry, Matthew.”
He pulled back, his eyes wide. “Don’t you dare apologize for that asshole, Red. You did nothing wrong. Nothing. If anything, I’m sorry you had to see him again. I’m so fucking sorry. Just know, he got exactly what he deserved.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he might not be serving time for what he did to you, but he will definitely be in prison for a while. I know too much about his guns and drugs. I couldn’t let him walk around free knowing what he did to you.”
I gasped. “You turned him in? Your best friend?”
He nodded. “For you, I’d do anything.”
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I held him close, listening to the fast beating of his heart. His fingers sifted through my hair while he dropped tiny kisses on top of my head. Minutes passed as we held each other.
“I guess I’ll get going then. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I’m here. I’m not giving up on us, Shannon. When I told you I loved you, I meant it.”
He pulled away, but I couldn’t let him go. Not when I needed him there. Not when I wanted him there. I’d been thinking it the entire time, but saying it to anyone but my grammy had always been a problem for me.
Not anymore.
Not after what he did for me.
“I love you, too,” I muffled against the front of his shirt.
He stilled, pushing me gradually away from him until I was looking into his face once again.
“Say it again, but this time I want to see your face when you say it.”
I smiled nervously, my body feeling as though it was shaking. My eyes met his, his blue eyes looking much more vibrant than I’d ever seen them before. “I said I love you, too.”
He kissed me hard. His mouth devouring mine like never before.
Turning us, he pressed me against my door and lost his hands in my hair, pulling out my bun.
I kissed him back, grabbing at the doorknob behind as I tried to open the door and pull him inside with me.
Locked.
I’d locked the stupid door.
I pulled away and took a deep breath. Turning away from him, I stuck my key in the knob and popped the door open. We barely made it inside the house before we were undressing. And there, on the couch in the middle of the living room where Lilly and Devin could come in at any point, we made love.
Matthew showed me at that moment what I meant to him, and I tried with all that I was to show him the same. I didn’t think I would ever come down
from the high of feeling so free, but as we were snuggling on the couch afterward, I received a phone call that would rock my world once again.
“Hello, this is Loretta, a nurse here at Twin Oaks. We need you to come in right away. It’s your grandmother.”
WE BURIED MY GRAMMY BESIDE POPS, and her information on the double headstone we purchased after his death years before was finally filled in, marking the date she was born and the date she died.
I cried beside her grave as they lowered her pink casket into the ground. I would miss her, but at least, she wasn’t suffering. At least, she was with her love again.
Grammy had always told me that our lives were just a blink. She said we were just passing through until we arrived at the pearly gates. I comforted myself thinking about her sayings and how nice it would be for her if Pop was waiting at the gates for her.
I stayed next to her side long after the funeral was over and the few people who had shown up to pay their respects had left. Tears slipped down my cheeks, dripping onto the front of my black dress and leaving dark dots.
“Are you okay?”
I turned to find Matthew behind me, his eyes downcast and puffy. He was wearing a dark suit with a black tie. His hair was smoothed back, but his face looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days.
I shook my head. “I’ve lost almost everything,” I said. “My childhood. My pop. My grammy. And I left my future to burn with everything my grammy and pop owned.”
“What are you talking about? You still have a future, Shannon.”
“No. His ring,” I cried, not making any sense. “His ring is gone, and so is my chance at a precious moment. I’d hoped you were it, but without the ring, I feel like it’s not possible.”
His expression cleared, and his eyes widened.
“What did you say?”
“My pop left me his wedding band. He told Grammy to give it to me when he passed. He said I was to give it to my precious moment.” Realizing how crazy I sounded, I dropped my arms and said, “Never mind. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Actually, I do,” he said, moving closer to me. Taking my hand, his warm fingers made my cold ones tingle. “We’re just passing through, Shannon, and if you find someone you love, you should treat them like it’s the last time you’ll ever see them … every day. Treat them as if they’re a precious moment in your life that you’ll only get to experience once.”
Hot & Heavy (Chubby Girl Chronicles Book 2) Page 20
