She pushed past him, and he reached out to grab her as she sailed by, but he missed.
“Where are you going, Brooke?”
“Home.” It was all she said, and then she disappeared through the front door. She heard him calling her name, over and over, as she walked to her car.
On the other side of the room, sleazy Jennifer, still draped over the quarterback, watched the entire scene. A crafty smile formed on her over-painted lips.
Brooke turned the door knob slowly, and to her surprise it wasn't locked. Hmm, that's odd, she thought. He always locked the door at night. He must have forgotten, she reasoned. After all, he had been fairly drunk the night before. He probably stumbled in during the night and passed out, not realizing, or simply not caring, that he'd neglected to lock the door.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside, careful not to make noise in case he was still asleep, or worse, if he was awake and had a killer hangover. It would serve him right, she thought. She couldn't imagine that it would take much for him to become intoxicated. Logan wasn't a drinker, after all. He never had been. She could count on one hand how many times she could remember him drinking in his lifetime. She passed the closet on her right and continued down the long hallway. She didn't hear a thing, which meant that he was probably still in bed.
She'd gone back to her dorm room the night before after their argument at the party. She was pissed, but she knew she would get over it. Which she had, well, mostly. She didn't like the idea of Logan drinking, but what had upset her the most was that he'd taken off with his buddy to go and drink, and hadn't said a word to her. He'd left her waiting, and then searching for him, sick with worry. It wouldn't have taken much to call her. She probably would have given him hell, and he knew that, hence the lack of a phone call. She was still a little annoyed, but it would pass. She hated fighting with him. It was the first major argument they'd ever had, and it left her confused and sad inside. She figured he likely felt the same way, or at least he would, once he was sober. Making up would definitely be worth it, though, if the thoughts that were running through her mind were any indication.
She rounded the corner to the right to where the bed was positioned in the room, and it took her a full ten seconds before the shock of what she saw registered. Logan lay sprawled face down on the bed, totally nude. His head lay flat on the mattress and turned toward the left. His left arm lay draped over sleazy Jennifer, who lay on her left side facing him. She was as naked as he was.
Brooke couldn't think through the shock. All she could do was stand there for a minute in disbelief, her heart pounding. Then the shock was replaced by sheer anger. That's when her adrenaline kicked in.
“What the fuck?!” she screamed. Her shriek had only begun to rouse them from sleep. “Wake your ass up,” she yelled, frantically scanning Logan's dorm room looking for something, anything, that she could use as a weapon. She spotted the tennis racquet he had dumped in the chair the day before. She stalked over and picked it up, and then stomped back over to the bed. He was slowly beginning to move around. She gripped the handle with both hands and pulled her arms back and above her right shoulder. She gave the swing every ounce of strength she had. The blow landed on his lower back. He woke up instantly, yelling out in pain.
“What the---” He rolled over and sat up in bed, trying to focus. His head was throbbing like a son-of-a-bitch. Logan spotted Brooke standing over him, his racquet in her hands and murder in her eyes. Logan looked at her, thoroughly confused, and tried to clear his mind. “What the hell, Brooke? Did you just hit me with that fucking thing?”
He barely got the words out before she hauled off and slammed him in the side of the head with another blow. Jennifer, who woke from the noise and scrambled up in the middle of the bed, let out a ridiculously high-pitched scream.
Logan turned his attention in her direction. Seeing her naked and in his bed shocked him. “What in the hell is going on here?” he yelled at Jennifer. The confused look on her face would have been comical under any other circumstances.
“What are you talking about?” The tramp had the audacity to appear insulted. “You invited me back to your room last night.” The blank look on his face irritated the hell out of her. How dare he act like nothing happened when he got caught in the act? Well, after the act, technically. How insulting. “We had sex,” she added. “Quite a few times.”
“The hell we did,” he tossed back at her. “I don't know how you managed to crawl into my bed, but you need to take your ass out of it,” he tossed out.
He tried to think back to the events of the night before. He remembered fighting with Brooke at the party, and leaving with Adam to head back to the bar. He remembered some events that took place at the bar, like Jennifer sashaying up to him at the bar and talking to him. It didn't take him long to realize that she was hitting on him. He remembered buying her a drink, and slamming back quite a few of his own.
He'd gone on about how women were bitches and she listened, agreeing with him. “Not all women,” she'd purred. “Some women simply have no clue how to appreciate a guy like you, Logan.” He was pissed about the argument he'd had with Brooke. He didn't understand why she'd made a huge deal out of him having some drinks with his buddy. And it had escalated into a fight. Jennifer had talked him into leaving the bar and going back to his place.
He could remember bits and pieces of how they'd gotten back to his dorm room. He had no idea where Adam was. He remembered stumbling onto the bed, and when she began taking off his clothes, he told her no, that she needed to stop. But she didn't. She whispered in his ear about how much he was going to love the things she was going to do to him. After she'd taken his clothes off, she stripped naked and got into bed with him, stroking him until he was rock hard, and touching herself while she did, getting totally into it.
He remembered that she reached into her purse and pulled out a condom and slid it down the length of his erection. Then she straddled him, and took him inside her. She kissed him, and he kissed her back. He remembered her riding him hard, and he'd let her, simply because she was there and had offered herself to him. He'd been too drunk to think rationally.
The realization of what had happened, of what he'd done, came to him in a sudden, intensely agonizing, nauseating moment. Brooke could see the recognition in his eyes. It was written all over his face.
He jumped up from the bed and reached out for her. “Brooke,” he said, almost like a plea. She pulled away from him. The rage was too much for her to control. She landed another blow, to the side of his head again.
“What in the hell are you trying to do, bludgeon me? Stop it right now, Brooke!”
“Bludgeoning you would be too merciful, you bastard!”
She drew back and hit him again, with every ounce of strength she had in her. The blow connected with his face, and she heard the cracking noise as his head snapped back. It echoed loudly in her ears. Blood, thick and bright red, gushed from his nose. He immediately brought his hands up to cover it. It oozed from between his fingers. His head exploded with pain. Logan thought for a second that he would pass out.
“Are you crazy?” he yelled. “You broke my fucking nose!” he swore. Anger replaced the pain that clouded his eyes. Under any other circumstances, that would have been enough of a warning for her. But not at that moment. Brooke wasn't in the frame of mind to be reasonable. In fact, she did feel like she was going a little bit crazy.
“Oh yeah?” she yelled back. “Well, good!”
She didn't give a damn about his perfect, beautiful nose. She didn't give a damn if she managed to knock every perfect pearly white tooth out of his mouth. It would serve the cheating bastard right. She hauled back to swing one more time, but he was faster. With one quick movement, he grabbed the handle, covering both of her hands with his own. When he tried to pry her fingers off, she held on tighter.
God, his hands are strong. His strength was outrageous, but she refused to let go. Instead, she fought him. She turned
, trying to get out from underneath his grip, and his chest ended up pressed against her back as they struggled. Her strength was no match for his, and he wore her out. Tired, she stopped struggling and became still.
She loosened her grip on the handle, and so did he. Reluctantly, she let her hands drop away. Logan tossed it to the side. He was still behind her, and he buried his bloody face in her hair while wrapping his arms around her. The tears came, long and hard, racking her body. He held onto her. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach worsened until he felt like he was going to vomit. Her body shook uncontrollably, and the sound of her pitiful sobs pierced his heart. He tried to soothe her, to console her, in the only way he knew how to at that moment. By just holding her. After a few minutes, she shrugged him away. Turning, she looked at him. He was a mess. His right eye was swollen and his nose was bruised already, the blood caked around his nostrils and on his face. She almost felt badly about what she'd done to him. Almost.
She looked into his eyes, searching for something, anything, that would make this better. But there was nothing. Nothing he could say or do would ever make this better. It would never change the fact that he'd slept with someone else. The thought of it made her physically ill.
He took a step toward her, and she stepped back. He looked at her then, searching her face for some understanding, some compassion. But all he saw there was hurt and anger. The way she looked at him tore him to pieces. Logan could never have imagined that something like this would happen. Not ever. Not to them. He was desperate, and he knew it. So he did the only thing a man in his position could do. He prepared to beg.
“Brooke.” He said her name softly. When she didn't respond, he pleaded. “Brooke, please. Look at me.” She did. Her eyes were bright with shimmering tears. “I'm sorry.” He whispered it. “I'm so so sorry.” He swallowed the softball-sized lump in his throat. “Brooke, you know me. You know me. This isn't me. You know that I would never do something like this.”
She fought back stinging tears that still threatened, and kept her eyes on his. “And yet you did.” Her voice was strained with emotion. “I would never have believed it, not in a million years. Until I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Brooke, I was wasted. Completely fucked up,” he said, in an attempt to explain his deplorable actions. “I didn't know what I was doing.”
“How can you say that? How can you recall the events of last night so easily, and then expect me to believe you didn't know what you were doing? Drunk or not, you knew exactly what you were doing.” she said, her voice hollow. “Don't add 'liar' to your list of shortcomings.”
She turned her head to the side, and something caught her eye. Strewn about the floor near the foot of the bed were three condoms, all used. She could see the semen pooled at the tip of each one from when he'd ejaculated. They were just tossed there, on the floor. His eyes were drawn to them, too. He couldn't explain, not even to himself, what he was feeling at that moment. She felt a wave of nausea rise up. She had to get the hell out of there.
Frantically, she tried to move past him, but he stopped her. He reached out to take her hand, but she pulled it away. She shook her head. “Don't touch me. You don't get to touch me. Not anymore.”
Panic gripped him, hard. He had to say something, anything, that would reach her. “Brooke, please. I love you. I love you. It was a mistake, a horrible mistake and I'm so sorry. I'll do anything to fix this. Anything, Brooke.”
“Don't you dare stand there and tell me it was a mistake. A mistake is when it happens once. Once, Logan. Not three times. You fucked this...this whore, three times!” she yelled at him, waving a hand toward Jennifer, who still sat in the middle of the bed, naked, watching the entire scene as if she were at a movie and all that was missing was the popcorn. “Or three times that I know of, anyway. ” Her voice broke, and the flood of tears she'd been holding back threatened to break free again. “I can't even bear to look at you right now. You disgust me.” She drew her hand back and slapped him across his face. The sound echoed throughout the room. Logan took it, because he knew it was less, even, than he deserved. “There is no fixing this.” Before she broke down again, she pushed past him and ran out of the room.
Logan ran after her, down the hall and down a flight of stairs to the door that exited to the parking lot. He reached her just as she got into her car and slammed the door shut. He banged on the window. “Brooke, roll down the window, damn it.” She looked away from him, and put the car in reverse, backing out of the parking space. She quickly put it in drive and sped away. When she looked in her rear view mirror, Logan was still standing there, naked and bruised. Coincidentally, that was the exact way she felt at that very moment.
Logan called her a dozen times, and texted her at least twice that many. She didn't answer a single one. After she'd sped out of the parking lot, he ran upstairs and escorted a screaming, cursing Jennifer from his room with her clothes in her arms, and closed the door in her face. He showered and dressed quickly, grabbing his keys on the way out the door. He had to see Brooke. But when he got to her room, she wasn't there. So he'd called and texted and called some more, but with no luck. She wasn't answering, which told him that she had zero interest in talking to him. Or in listening.
Logan wasn't sure of much at that moment, but one thing he was sure of was that he loved Brooke more than life itself, and he wasn't going to lose her without putting up a fight. He just hoped that in the end, he came out the victor.
He camped out in the hallway outside her dorm room. He didn't know what else to do, where else to go to look for her. He'd gone everywhere he could possibly think to look. She obviously didn't want to be found. So he slid to the floor and sat with his back against her door, and rested his head against it. He stretched out his legs. He was tired and sore. After exhausting every avenue searching for Brooke, he'd gone to the hospital, where they'd cleaned, x-rayed and taped his nose. It was indeed broken. He had to give it to her, she had a hell of a swing. All he could do now was wait. She had to come back eventually. Besides, it was the only plan he had.
This was how Brooke found him when she finally made it back to her dorm room, just before 7:00 that evening. She watched him as he slept. His body was slumped over and his head fell to the side. He looked incredibly uncomfortable in the position he was currently in. He looked exhausted. Brooke noticed that the blood that had dried and caked in and around his nose had been cleaned. There was bruising across the bridge of his nose and general swelling. His left eye was purple and swollen shut. He looked like he'd been through a war.
In a small part of her heart, Brooke felt badly for what she'd done to Logan's face. She couldn't believe she actually had the nerve to beat him with a tennis racquet, his own tennis racquet, no less. She was the most calm and easy-going person. Or at least she'd thought she was. It scared her how she'd let her rage control her the way it had. She was used to being in complete control of her actions. But rage and jealousy combined could do strange things to a person, she realized. She didn't want to be that person. Not ever again.
She hated him for what he'd done. But she loved him, too. She stepped around him and jabbed the key into the lock. She turned the knob, and the weight of his body against the door flung it open wide. Logan fell backward toward the floor. Brooke stepped over him and headed into her room. He was awake instantly, and it took him only a couple of seconds before he was on his feet. He blinked a few times to clear his eyes of sleep, and to focus.
Neither of them spoke. He watched her silently as she took off her sweater and hung it in the closet. She was nervous, and at the same time trying to be as calm as she possibly could be. She gathered up her shorts and tank top and disappeared into the bathroom. She came out a minute later, her clothes changed. She remained silent.
Logan had remained standing, watching her every move. She was much too calm, he thought. Something didn't seem quite right. She should be furious with him. Instead, she was so calm.
“Brooke.” Her n
ame seemed foreign to her own ears, which was fitting because she certainly didn't seem herself. She felt like someone else, someone on the outside looking in, seeing her life the way it was at that moment in time, and the devastation that had ravaged it, just before her world came crumbling down around her. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him.
“I'm glad you came by,” she said, her voice small, distant.
“Brooke, baby, we need to talk about this,” Logan said, the stress of the day finally taking its toll on him. He thought he was near to his breaking point.
She dismissed his use of the endearment. It didn't mean anything to her anymore. They were only words, the significance of them having been snuffed out by his betrayal of her love, her trust.
“I told you this morning, Logan, that there's nothing left to say.”
“The hell there isn't,” he exclaimed. “I have a lot that I want to say to you.”
“Whatever it is won't change anything. I wish it could, but it can't.” She felt hollow inside. Every part of her heart ached. She brought her hands up in front of her, and touched a finger to the ring she wore on her wedding finger. The ring that, until that very morning, had symbolized their love for and commitment to one another, and had been the promise of their future. Now it meant nothing.
Brooke slowly slid it off of her finger. Logan watched her as panic began to build up inside him.
“No. No.” He shook his head as if to reaffirm his words. This couldn't possibly be happening. His head throbbed and the tightness in his chest felt like a hundred pound weight was sitting on top of it.
Brooke held the ring between her thumb and index finger. It sparkled brilliantly when the light caught it in just the right way. He'd given it to her the summer before when he'd proposed to her. Brooke had cherished that day in her heart, believing it was the start of their long and happy life together. It was astounding to her how quickly things could change. How your life could fall apart in the blink of an eye. She was numb. There was really no other way to explain how she felt. She'd gone through the shock and the anger, and now there was numbness.
Second Chance at Love (The MacKenna Born & Bred Trilogy) Page 4
