by Helena Maeve
Right now Hazel was fairly certain that she found herself in the latter category.
“You wanted to talk,” she recalled and took a tentative sip of her soda and lime. “What’s there to talk about?”
“I’m not sure now is the best time to—”
“You think this hasn’t happened before?”
Ward’s astonishment flashed starkly across his milky-white features. So Hazel went on.
“It’s a rare day when I leave the house without some creep making a pass at me.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Ward replied, “but you are a beautiful woman—”
“Right now? Maybe. Not so sure that’s true when I’m doing a coffee run in my PJs or wiping spilled ketchup off the tables at Marco’s. Or waiting for the bus….”
“Men are pigs?” Ward offered hesitantly.
Hazel took another sip of her soda water. If Ward had slipped her something, then it was subtle enough that she couldn’t discern the taste. “Tell me more about you and Dylan in college.” She didn’t want to talk about herself anymore.
“Wouldn’t you rather ask him?”
Hazel toed off her ankle boots. “I’m asking you.” Distract me.
She expected Ward to refuse. He was as closed off as he’d been at the club, shoulders stiff beneath his tailored black shirt. Yet when he spoke, a wistful smile crept onto his lips, eventually gaining his whole face. He looked different when he smiled in earnest—less Machiavellian, somehow. Certainly less put-together.
“We met in junior year,” Ward recalled. “I transferred out of Columbia, failed most of my finals. Again. Dylan was on his first go at Ledwich—proud and defiant, huge chip on his shoulder… You have to understand, Ledwich doesn’t offer many scholarships. There are anywhere between five and ten students who couldn’t otherwise afford tuition, never any more than that. Dylan had been living on campus for three years when I showed up, so most of the abuse from the other students had dwindled by then.”
“So you picked up the slack?” Hazel ventured.
She had an easy time imagining Ward as a reckless, arrogant twenty-year-old hell bent on plucking the wings off butterflies just because he could. He wore that mantle even now, albeit not so flagrantly.
He waved a hand. “Every school has its Skull and Crossbones equivalent. Usually it’s a fraternity everyone’s trying to get into or a football squad that makes grown men wet themselves… We had two rowing teams. Where you fell in the pecking order affected which crew you joined. Scholarship students got the Copperheads.” He grimaced. “The rest of us got Even Odds.”
“Fitting name,” Hazel mumbled under her breath.
“Dylan was desperate to join the Odds. They got the better equipment, the better coach. They had money, essentially, and the Copperheads didn’t. He’d been trying to make the crew since freshman year. He showed up for trials every semester… And he was good. Very good. But there was some resistance from the existing members.”
“Until you showed up.”
Ward narrowed his eyes at the interruption, but he was smiling. “Has Dylan already told you this story?”
“No,” said Hazel. “I just have a feeling I know how it goes. You decided to up the stakes, make it harder and harder for him to prove he could make the cut. Dylan dug his heels in. Eventually you came to blows… Ta-da, the start of a wonderful friendship.”
The curve of Ward’s small smile grew even fainter, smoothing out until his lips were perfectly horizontal. “I told him he’d make the team if he gave me a blow job,” he confessed, speaking mostly to his untouched whiskey.
Hazel arched her eyebrows. “He turned you down? Punched you in the face?”
“No.”
It wasn’t the feel-good homoerotic coming of age movie she’d built up in her head. It also wasn’t something Ward seemed to treat as hilariously funny. His shoulders stooped when he shifted forward to set his tumbler on the coffee table. He didn’t seem proud or commanding anymore.
He didn’t seem like he wanted to relive the past.
So this is what guilt looks like when it’s packaged in Hugo Boss. Her stomach roiled as she ran through scathing remarks in her head, discarding them one right after the other. In the end, she only wanted to know one more thing. “Why?”
Ward glanced up from his joined palms with a sullen expression. His prayers to the god of hard liquor and bad decisions must have gone unheeded.
“I wanted him. He didn’t want me… I never said it was a cheerful story.”
Something about his posture told Hazel that he was perfectly aware the addendum did nothing to exculpate him. She didn’t heed it.
“And now?”
“Now?”
Hazel couldn’t tell if he was stalling her or not, but she furrowed her brow all the same. “What do you want from him now? You haven’t told him about my—indiscretions. You wanted to set the record straight tonight…” If this was Ward’s way of working his way toward absolution, Hazel wanted no part in it. “Dylan mentioned that he’s been with other women since you and he left school,” she pointed out, disregarding the part where he was also adamant that his relationship with Ward was off limits.
He’d made clear that a relationship with him would imply putting up with his tetchy roommate. There was no way around it. Before she’d found out that Ward was an abusive fuck, Hazel might have considered it. Now, her skin crawled. She’d been the Dylan in that equation. She knew it was messed up.
“I want him to be happy,” Ward confessed miserably.
“Even if that means being with other people?”
Ward held out for a long beat before nodding, once and solemnly, and glancing away.
“Is it because they’re women or…” Hazel pursed her lips. “Is it a fetish thing?” Dylan had a fully fitted playroom. Clearly his taste for dominating women wasn’t a passing fetish.
“Partly. Dylan will submit to me if I ask. But since I don’t reciprocate, I can’t help feeling like I’m forcing him into something he doesn’t truly care for.”
Like the first time, you mean? Hazel scoffed, which had the same effect as that jagged barb.
Ward flinched. He had no right to look so downtrodden, so hurt. He’d gotten everything he wanted out of that stupid dare all those years back—and Dylan was still around, still caught in his orbit. Some men were lucky like that.
“He wouldn’t be sleeping with you in the first place if he didn’t enjoy it on some level.”
She didn’t want to admit it, but sex with Dylan was at once intimate and personal. Even at their most clinical, their sessions in his playroom had never felt like they could involve any other two people. Dylan made her the center of his world in exchange for her trust. Whether or not that was a fair trade, Hazel couldn’t say. She trusted herself less than she did him.
Body language at odds with his tone, Ward asked, “What makes you think we’re sleeping together?”
Hazel narrowed her eyes. Really?
Ward scowled but ducked his head. “It’s complicated.”
“That’s what he said.” Like most things, the snappy comeback was funnier in her head.
“You must think I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re not stellar. That’s for sure.” The retort seemed to diminish Ward even further, as if her words were millstones piled onto his shoulders. Were she in a more vindictive mood, Hazel could see herself deriving great pleasure from giving Ward the verbal lashing he deserved. It didn’t seem necessary. He wasn’t sitting there, hunch shouldered, and telling her all this because he was proud.
On impulse, Hazel exchanged her glass for his and downed the whiskey in one burning swig. “I’ll need to be a lot drunker before I start confessing my sins,” she offered by way of explanation. Then she held out the glass. “Another.”
Surprise flitting off his features, Ward complied.
Chapter Twelve
“Your bag’s moving.”
“What?” Hazel trie
d to sit up, but she was lying on her hair and the unexpected tug stabbed through her skull. “Ow!”
Ward laughed. He’d been laughing a lot, when he wasn’t angrily swiping at his eyes. “Your bag,” he repeated. He hooked a toe in the offending accessory and nudged it against her calves.
It was, indeed, vibrating.
Hazel plucked out her cell. “Oh… It’s my sister-in-law.”
“Answer,” Ward urged. “You can tell her about the dent you’ve put in my stash of Glenfiddich.” He swirled his tumbler in her direction as though to underscore the point. Somewhere around the third refill, he’d brought the bottle along to the sitting area. He reached for it now, pulling off the metal cap with his teeth.
Even sloppy drunk, he should’ve been easy to ignore.
“It’s a Facebook update,” Hazel shot back. She negotiated the complicated mechanics of couch and unbound hair carefully, folding her bare feet under her lotus-style. “Ooh, college reunion! I guess she forgot I didn’t graduate…”
“Maybe that’s why she invited you.”
Hazel fished one of her boots off the floor and lobbed it in Ward’s general direction. As projectiles went, it didn’t have much spin. Her aim left a lot to be desired. The boot flew past the Eames chair and landed with a dull thump on the hardwood floor.
“Shut up. I like Rhonda.”
“Cool name,” Ward gushed, unruffled. The way he held up his hand made Hazel think of an airplane. One that crashed on his knee, fingers warped into a fist. “Very middle America.”
For want of better ammo, Hazel brandished the phone at him in a loose circle. “You calling my sister average?”
“Please. There’s nothing wrong with average! Average is pancakes and string cheese, and those little crackers shaped like animals,” he said and ended with a hiccup.
“Like Ward is any better…”
“I’ll have you know it’s my father’s name,” he slurred. “Which I suppose only proves the point.”
Hazel didn’t try very hard to conceal a smirk. “And here I thought I had a tough relationship with my folks.”
“How many siblings have you got?”
She held up two fingers, the back of her hand turned toward him.
Ward smirked. “See, that’s what I mean.” He tapped his thumb against his chest. “Only child.”
“Millionaire only child.” The distinction was worth making.
He brushed her off. “The millions are tied up in more lawsuits than I can count… Most of which we’ll probably lose.” His tumbler was the target of a particularly dark glare before Ward tipped it against his lips. He downed the last of his whiskey with a single bob of the throat. “Sometimes I reckon Dylan’s right. I should cut and run. Start over… I could open a rival fast food chain, give you a run for your money.” His smile was ugly and mean, but Hazel had a hard time mustering the appropriate dread.
“You know Dylan a lot better than I do… Is he usually right?”
“Usually.” Ward held her gaze. “But he’s also idealistic. Suppose it comes from being adopted by hippies. Did you know his mother runs a community center? If you ever have a burning desire to take up hip-hop with a gaggle of octogenarians, ask Dylan to put you in touch.”
Hazel scoffed, dismissing the suggestion out of hand. “Yeah, because I’m sure Dylan’ll want to introduce me to his folks.” She tried not to wonder why it was so easy to say as much to Ward, whom she didn’t even like, when Dylan still left her tongue-tied. Was there no middle ground between eggshells and hot coals?
“Why not?”
“How many submissives has he paraded around to friends and family?”
She could see the calculation in Ward’s eyes before he shook his head. “You’re selling him short,” he protested, sounding fractionally more sober than before. “He’s a good guy.” The bottle of Glenfiddich was tipped against the lip of the tumbler, amber liquor once again harnessing the diffuse mood lighting in the loft and reflecting it back onto Ward’s fingers like leopard spots.
“You don’t have to convince me.”
Ward’s scowl deepened the dimples on either side of his mouth. “What’s this, then? Fishing for compliments?”
“From you? God help me!” Hazel shook her head. “I’m just making conversation… Least I can do, after you nearly broke your hand trying to defend my honor.”
He looked down at his bruised knuckles, gritting his teeth when the purpling thumb shook instead of flexing obediently. “Lucky I was there, huh?”
“Lucky the other guy was alone.”
The spat could’ve led to a very different outcome if Ward had had to take on Lothario and Lothario’s buddies. He conceded the point with a rueful grin, two spots of color blooming high on the apples of his cheeks. “You don’t think I could’ve taken him on with my kung-fu? I’m pretty badass when provoked. It’s like poking one of them grizzlies.”
“You,” Hazel said pointedly, “are a drunk.”
Ward burst out laughing, whiskey splashing onto his black slacks. “A drunk? Fine, then you’re a liar.”
It might have been the booze, but disbelief curdled in her belly.
“How am I a liar?”
“You hate Rhonda.” Ward fanned his fingers and twirled his hand around as though to encapsulate her person. “It’s written on your face. Is it ’cause she’s all smarty pants?”
“She’s a housewife,” Hazel snapped. Her face fell as soon as the words were past her lips. “Fuck, I didn’t mean that.”
Ward’s grin made it hard to retract the careless charge.
“I didn’t mean it. She’s going to be a mom. She made her choice…”
“And you don’t think much of it. That’s okay. Would have to turn in your feminist card if you didn’t have strong opinions about motherhood.”
Glare aside, Hazel couldn’t totally dismiss the kernel of truth. She stared her cell down, the invite still flashing merry in blue and white. “Truth is I’d probably be doing the same thing in her shoes.”
“Waiting tables isn’t your dream job, huh?”
We can’t all be CEOs. Hazel scowled. “Thanks for rubbing it in, asshole.” Liquor made it easier to run her mouth.
“Hey, running a virtually bankrupt company isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either, you know…”
“Talk to me when your tits are splattered all over the Internet,” Hazel shot back, seeing red. She snatched the whiskey bottle out of Ward’s hands and replenished her glass. “I can’t go to an interview without wondering if the guy sitting across the table spent last night jerking off to my naked ass.”
Ward arched his eyebrows, something unsympathetic and curious in his gaze. “And the lesson here is that next time you should think more carefully before making a sex tape.”
There will never be a next time. Not that the first had been her doing, either.
Hazel doused the memory in single malt. She could barely taste the oak casks anymore.
“How come you dropped out?” Ward asked, seemingly out of the blue. Hazel doubted the thought had only just come to him. She was beginning to understand how his mind worked. Even hammered, he wasn’t stupid. He’d saved up the question, waiting until she’d finished railing against the world to back her into a corner.
“I packed up all my shit and left campus. That’s how.”
“Yes, but… Why?” Ward inclined his head against the backrest of the lounge chair. “Was it because of the sex tape?”
Completely.
When Hazel didn’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand, he frowned. “I know you Americans are fiendishly puritanical about these things, but it’s not like coeds don’t get up to worse. All those campus parties…”
“It’s not so simple. I had a scholarship.” A reputation. A family.
A boyfriend.
“With a morality clause?” Ward shifted his weight, elbows balanced on his knees. Was this what he was like in board meetings? Liquor buzzing in her veins, Hazel tried to
picture him focusing those dark eyes on dull financial reports. Yet the mental image that rose behind her closed lids was that of Ward peering at Dylan when he thought his friend wasn’t looking. She could well believe he was capable of taking what he wanted, but there was a weird sort of tenderness to him, as well.
Hazel made a mental note to watch her step. Hidden depths abounded here.
She licked her lips. “There was a GPA requirement. I had to keep a B plus average.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to play it off. This was all ancient history, rendered meaningless by the passage of time and the choices she’d made since. “I didn’t perform.”
“I thought you said it was because of the tape.”
“You said that,” she corrected, never happier for holding her tongue than she was then.
Ward held her gaze. “You didn’t protest… And you protest everything I say.”
“I’m drunk. Cut me some slack, Columbo.” It would’ve been a passable excuse, were it not for the whiskey sharpening instead of dulling the bite of memory. She downed the dregs and reached for the bottle again. Ward was faster.
He caught her hand, fingers feverish around her wrist. His gaze zipped across her features as though he was searching for the Rosetta Stone that would help him decipher the inner workings of her brain. “What am I missing here?”
“Oh, honey,” Hazel drawled, laughing mirthlessly. “How long have you got?”
Ward let her have the bottle.
* * * *
Tracts on the noticeboards of college campuses across the country laid out very good reasons for not drinking with strange men. Hazel wondered if any of those lists featured ‘waking up in bed with your maybe-boyfriend’s significant other’.
If so, those rape-prevention tacticians really thought of everything.
If not, it was something they should look into. Because it was fucking awkward.
The bedroom resolved around her in fragments—first a sliver of the floor-to-ceiling windows reluctantly letting light in through their many panes and splashing it across the unvarnished hardwood floors, then the mahogany dresser. The self-standing mirror in the corner caught her eye when she rolled over. It reflected a slice of the bed beneath the sleeve of a discarded black shirt.
