Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)

by Charlotte Stein

  And then it sounded a lot like a sob.

  A big, wrenching one that she had to cover her mouth to contain.

  Much to Lydia’s consternation.

  “Oh my god, Letty, okay. Okay, babe, it’s okay. It’s fine…hey, it’s going to be fine,” she said, and then that hug was suddenly happening. Arms were surrounding her. Strong, insistent arms, squeezing tight without having to ask. When Letty finally managed words, she had to do it from within the tight swaddling of the greatest embrace she’d ever experienced.

  And they were better for it.

  More honest. More heartfelt.

  “No, no, you don’t understand. I’m not crying because I’m afraid or sad. I keep trying to be, but then I think about how much I longed for and dreamed of getting some kind of sorry, how hard I knew that it would never come because in dismal reality it never does, and then he’s just here and he says that he’s in the red. He says he’s in the red and that it’s going to take tons of good deeds to put him in the black.” Another sob snuck out, wet and rough against Lydia’s neat little red sweater. Not that Lydia minded. She was busy stroking her hair and helping her get the rest out. “He told me that I’m at my very best, when he was at his worst. Who says something like that in real life? No one says that in real life.”

  “That is true. And it’s definitely awesome. Way better than a Lifetime movie. But to be clear on this, no matter how much he contravenes the laws of dismal reality, you don’t have to forgive him,” Lydia said.

  “I know. I know.”

  “He didn’t just sit by and let that dude do that to you. He stole your self-esteem.”

  “That is a really great way to put it,” Letty said. “How did you know how to put it so great?”

  “I know because when I offered to help you move in you looked at me like you were just waiting for the punch line to a joke I wasn’t telling. And that’s what bullies do to people. They don’t just hurt you or make you feel bad for five minutes in high school. They create the backbone of every friendship you try to have from then on. They change your life forever.”

  “Oh my god that’s an even better way to put it. They should just give you that psych degree right now. Freud should come back from beyond the grave to hand it to you,” she said, and now the laugh they shared was easier. Less fraught, and more relaxed.

  It didn’t even change when Lydia said she was funny.

  And her thoughts were suddenly all Tate, saying the same thing.

  Chapter 6

  She wasn’t looking for him specifically among the crowd flooding into the lecture hall. But something did happen inside her when she spotted him. A kind of lightness, or a lifting of some heavy part of herself. He had listened to her. Everything was settling into a nice, normal routine. They were going about their daily lives in an ordinary manner, and they were doing it completely separately.

  He sat in the fourth row like the first time, and she sat at the back. Only now there was no rising sense of dread. She didn’t keep her hand to herself when Harrison asked a question. She answered, without the background sound of someone snickering. And even when it felt as though he was looking at her, when she snuck a glance at him she only ever saw the back of his head.

  He bent low over his notes, and his head occasionally lifted a little as he really listened to whatever Harrison was saying. Once or twice she actually caught him nodding, or doing a little staggered-looking half laugh over some ridiculous concept.

  As if he loved it all now.

  He loved it so much he was sometimes at the lectures early. She would come in with Lydia, still giggling over something ridiculous, and get the faint prickle that told her he was already there. Only now when it happened it didn’t make her want to cover herself up, or run and hide. There was nothing to hide from.

  Everything was going to be super cool and totally fine from here on in.

  Or it would have been, if it were not for the group project. The one that she was so excited for that she didn’t process it when Harrison started reading out the names. She would be working with Lydia—that was a given. They were going to watch ridiculously filthy movies together and laugh about bobbing butts and ogle Ewan McGregor’s penis.

  And then she heard his name.

  Followed by hers.

  Distantly, like in a dream of being in class.

  In a second she would realize she was naked—or worse.

  “Miss Carmichael, do you have a problem with that assignment?”

  Everyone was looking at her now. No—not just looking. Examining, as though she had become a new and baffling species. The girl who was not excited about being carried by Tate Sullivan. The creature who seemed horrified at the prospect of working with him. It made it difficult to do anything at all, even with Lydia urging her to say yes, yes I do have a fucking problem.

  Though she still didn’t expect the shake of her head to happen. Just one little accidental shake of her head and that was it. Harrison moved on to his next victim, leaving her in something she once had a nightmare about in ninth grade. Working with Tate. On a semester-long project.

  About sex in cinema.

  “Don’t worry, we can fix this. Just go to his office and talk to him privately about it. He would have to be Satan himself to not understand,” she heard Lydia whisper.

  But the words seemed even further away than her name had when Harrison read it out.

  “Right. Right. Yeah. You’re right.”

  “I can come with you if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay. That’s fine.”

  “Are you sure? You look like you’ve been punched. In the face. With a small nuclear blast.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, but soon came to regret that firmness in her voice. The steady nod that told Lydia it was okay for her to go in a different direction once they were outside. It only meant that she was on her own when she got to the tiny hallway outside Harrison’s door.

  And saw that Tate was already waiting.

  Of course he was—he probably had the same concerns as her. No matter how sorry he was or what he thought of being in the red and being wrong, he would never want to work in close quarters with her for the entire semester. In fact, him being sorry likely made the situation seem worse to him. Most likely he had calculated all the awkward conversations they would have to have and how far apart they would have to stand to keep her comfortable, and found it as unbearable as she did.

  Even though his expression seemed to say something else.

  Oh god. His expression was saying something else.

  Then he held up his hands, as though to calm her.

  And she knew.

  “All right, Letty, I know that you’re probably thinking it’s way better if you do this project with that gal pal of yours, but wait, okay? I got reasons why this is gonna be fine.”

  “Is that seriously why you’re here? To stop me asking Harrison to switch us?”

  “Well…no. Not stop you exactly. Stop is a really strong word.”

  “While I’m glad you’ve learned that—” she said, her voice briefly catching when she saw his wince. He winced, her mind hissed, before she forced herself to finish. “I still think it covers what’s happening here.”

  “I just wanted to talk to you about it for a second. Just, like, hear me out.”

  “I want to. I really do. But come on. You know I wasn’t born yesterday. This has all the hallmarks of some kind of trap or prank or joke at my expense.”

  “How could it possibly be a trap or prank? He put people together based on…I don’t even know what he put people together based on. But it couldn’t have had anything to do with me.”

  She searched his face, looking for the lie. Waiting for him to show some hint of bullshit, beneath those too-kind eyes and his spread hands and the obvious logic of what he was saying.

  Only there was nothing, nothing, nothing.

  And it made no difference at all.

  “Okay, I buy that. I do. Yet the
fact still remains: I cannot do a project with you. Ever. You have to know that doing anything like that is completely impossible for me. Right?”

  “I was just thinking that maybe…maybe you could give it a chance. You know, now that we’re on speaking terms and everything is almost cool between us.”

  “You think everything is cool between us?”

  “Well, maybe not cool exactly. More like…okay.”

  “Still need to dial it back a notch, chief.”

  “Reasonable? Not bad? Kind of semidecent?”

  “That last one is getting close.”

  He sighed, shoulders sagging.

  Relenting, she thought. He’s actually relenting.

  “Fine, we are a fucking disaster.”

  “Now you’re getting the idea,” she said.

  “But I figure we can work on it.”

  “By doing a project on sex in the cinema together?”

  “Well,” he said. “When you put it like that it sounds dumb.”

  “There’s no other way to put it! That is literally what you’re suggesting.”

  “Yeah, I get that. I just…want to not get that. I want it to be easier or better or just not the way this is.”

  “That could have been my daily prayer in high school, Tate.”

  He didn’t react the way she expected to, with more weird arguing.

  He just closed his eyes.

  He closed them like someone had just told him his family had been in a fatal accident.

  “I wish I could go back and start over again. More than wish—I would give everything I have to start over again. The wrestling, this scholarship, every party I ever went to and every fun thing I ever did. And you can choose to not believe me about that, but—”

  “I believe you.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are, but yeah.”

  “Then why does this have to be such a big deal?”

  She thought of Lydia saying attempted murder.

  The terror that used to flood her when he walked down the hall.

  That ever-present sensation of a grille barreling into her body.

  “Because understanding that someone is truly sorry and wanting to spend huge amounts of time with them are two different things. I might see that you mean this, and know rationally that I can almost sort of trust you. Maybe I even want it to be that easy, too. But your face is the one I had nightmares about for two years. Your smile doesn’t seem happy to me. I associate it with cruelty.” She shook her head. Glanced away from him so she didn’t have to see the defeated look on his face. “It’s hard for me to look at you, Tate, no matter how much I appreciate what you’ve done here.”

  “That was a really well-thought-out and logically sound speech.”

  “I know it was. I’m pretty proud.”

  “And I have no argument against it.”

  “You don’t need one. What you’ve done here…” She gritted her teeth hard and looked at the ceiling. But this time it didn’t stop the tears. They were already welling up by the time she explained the rest to him. “It means a lot. And a million men would never have done the same, I can promise you. I don’t have any messages from Jason on my phone. Patrick Whitworth isn’t going to call anytime soon. It’s just you, a rare fantasy in the middle of all this dismal reality.”

  He turned around when she was done. All the way around—and then his arms went up to cover his head and she understood. What she said had affected him, strongly. Maybe more than his words had affected her. It took him twice as long to get it together, and even after he had he couldn’t quite look at her. He just kept staring at the wall and clenching his jaw.

  And saying things. Oh yeah, he said things, in a strained, shaky voice.

  “I meant what I said, you know. That you are the very best.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m going to ask you not to say it again.”

  “I can’t stop. I have the opposite of whatever idiocy infected me in high school.”

  “What, like insane-need-to-compliment fever?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” he said.

  “Well it has taken a raging hold of you, let me tell you.”

  “I know it seriously cannot be stopped.”

  “I think you have a terminal case.”

  “Not a bad way to go, if you ask me,” he said, so soft and sincere it took all her strength to stop herself smiling in response. She could feel her lips trembling. Her cheeks ached with the effort of pinning them down, yet still she knew she was failing. She could see it in his satisfied expression.

  And hear it in his words.

  “That’s better. Seeing you look happy.”

  “I am happy,” she said, then added without thinking: “Are you?”

  Of course she didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a polite habit, based on interactions with people other than Tate. People who had actual problems, who lived troubled lives, who might answer with a god no. Tate would never need to answer with a god no. His life was full of endless possibilities and unfettered glory. He could snap his fingers and have a thousand people follow him to the ends of the earth.

  He even looked that way, in the dim light of the narrow hallway between these offices.

  His hair was the color of caramel, just as it started to burn. Every item of clothing suited him perfectly, from the rich gray-blue of his V-neck to the jeans he’d tucked into his sandy boots. He exuded cool from every pore; he could have stepped off the cover of a magazine.

  Yet all she could see was his face as it slowly sagged. It was like watching someone cut the strings that had held a mask in place—a mask she hadn’t known he was wearing. She thought that smiling golden god who had tormented her was the real him, but for a second she couldn’t be sure. Just for one heart-rattling second, and then the door to the office opened and that glimpse of something else was gone—so fast she would imagine later that it had never existed.

  It was just a trick of the light.

  Better to focus on the real and the now.

  “What can I do for you two today?” Professor Harrison asked.

  Then she took a breath and answered.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Chapter 7

  She agreed to meet him on neutral ground to start with. The only problem was, it didn’t really feel like neutral ground once she got there. The quiet of the library was suddenly stifling, and the spot he’d chosen was isolated and closed in. It was right at the back, between two towering shelves that shielded them completely from view. She took a step into that sheltered space and felt as though she’d dropped off the face of the earth.

  There wasn’t even a window.

  There was just the dim quiet, rows of falling-apart books, and Tate Sullivan standing in the corner, like an ogre lying in wait for the easily duped damsel. The only thing that stood in the way was a table and two chairs, neither of which seemed like a good enough defense.

  If he sat on one chair and she sat on the other, their knees would probably touch.

  Their hands would most likely brush as they handed each other books.

  She had to think fast, before any of that happened.

  “Okay, before we get started—there have to be some ground rules.”

  He shrugged one big shoulder.

  “I figured as much. Shoot.”

  “First of all…no sudden moves.”

  “What kind of sudden moves do you think I’m going to make?”

  “Handing me a book when I’m not prepared. Waving a hand in my face if I start to fall asleep. Touching my arm to draw my attention to something.”

  “What if I just promise to do those things in a way that does not seem murderous?”

  “Everything you do seems murderous to me. Literally everything.”

  “I could try moving super slowly like this,” he said.

  He actually demonstrated, inching toward a book on the table in such an exaggerated manner it made her want to laugh. Then h
e pretended to nod in agreement with the book’s contents in that exact walking-through-mud way, and that want to laugh got even harder.

  She had to cover her mouth before she spoke.

  “If anything, that doubles the murderousness. It makes you look like the bit in the movie when the bad guy isn’t really dead and swings for the heroine in slow motion.”

  “I want to argue here, but that actually makes a lot of sense.”

  “I know, right? Thank you,” she said, but he wasn’t ready to give up.

  After a second of absurdly visible thinking, he snapped his fingers.

  “What about if I make a warning sound?”

  “Like a truck backing up?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I fear it will just give me the chance to murder you first.”

  “You have absolutely no chance of murdering me first. I mean, you’re half my size and nowhere near as fast,” he said, half laughing as he did.

  But once he glanced back at her, the half laughing stopped dead.

  He saw her face—most probably tight with sudden alarm—and it was like a switch had been flipped.

  “Not that any of that is a bad thing. Or a thing that I’m about to take advantage of. Is that how it just seemed? Like I was explaining exactly how I’m going to kill you?”

  “It kind of had a whiff of that, yeah.”

  “Okay, so what about this: I show you ways to nail me.”

  “You…want to show me ways to…nail you.”

  “I’m just going to breeze right by the double meaning of nailed and say yes. Absolutely yes.”

  “You can’t be serious. Are you serious?”

  “I am. First up, this knee right here?” He pointed to the offending body part, while lifting it a little so she could really see. “You could probably blow on it and put me down.”

  “If that were true I reckon you would lose a lot more wrestling matches.”