But he caught it all the same.
He caught it before she could even make the turn.
“Oh my god. Are you…are you crying? Did I make you cry? Holy shit how do I keep doing this? That was meant to be reassuring. I was trying to be reassuring to you.”
“I’m not crying because you failed at reassuring me, Tate.”
“Then what are you crying for?”
“A ton of reasons. Happiness and regret and relief and, like, eight thousand other things. I mean, you just basically told me you want me to have something that you don’t think you’ll ever get. That is where you’re at right now: wishing me well while you probably die of wrestling-related head injuries.”
“I’m not going to die of wrestling-related head injuries, Letty. If anything, I’m probably going to die because mobsters got mad that I wouldn’t throw fights for them.”
He spoke the last part so flippantly she almost rode right over it. Her next words were going to be but you just told me the head injuries could happen, until she took a second to process. Then she just had to stop what she had been doing—swimming lazy circles around the deep end—and stare at him.
Hard. Really, really hard.
“What? What did you just say? Tell me you did not just say that.”
“Uh…uh…I don’t really…I’m not sure I remember.”
He got a look on his face like someone trying to do algebra in their head.
She knew what he was really doing, however.
Attempting to think up lies.
“You just said mobsters. That was the word you used. Mobsters.”
“Well, they weren’t exactly mobsters.”
“Oh my god. So now not only are you competing in a sport you hate, you’re competing in a sport you hate that mobsters are trying to control in some kind of illegal gambling ring.”
“It sounds way out there when you put it like that.”
“How else would you put it?”
He shrugged one shoulder, expression suddenly sheepish.
“Kind of exactly like that.”
“But you didn’t say yes to them, right? You laughed and walked away.”
“I don’t think you really want to be laughing at these guys. One of them looks sort of like a lizard in a real fancy suit. Like, the suit had a little pocket for his handkerchief and everything.”
“I don’t know how it’s possible, but that somehow makes it even more disturbing.”
“Yeah, I sorta figured that. My first instinct was: don’t get involved with a guy who has a handkerchief that looks like a dagger coming out of his breast pocket.”
“I would definitely agree with that assessment.”
“Plus, you know the amount of money they were offering was terrifyingly huge…”
She didn’t like the way his eyes slid to one side as he trailed off.
Like he didn’t want to meet her gaze while considering just how huge it was.
“Tate. Tate, just hold on here. Tate.”
“Like, massively ridiculously enormous.”
“No, Tate. No, this is a no.”
“More money than I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Tate, seriously. Not a good idea.”
“I could buy fifty of the trailers I grew up in.”
“Still, not a good idea.”
“My mom would never have to work again.”
He almost got her with that one. Well, that and the one before it combined. She got a little flash of what his home had looked like when he said trailer, and the memory wasn’t a good one. Even then, at the height of his awfulness, she had seen the rust and the way it leaned, and his mother outside struggling with the laundry, and felt a twinge of sympathy. Now the twinge was a great bleeding hole in her gut, gushing freely with each new revelation. She had to put a fist in it just to keep on this track.
But it was definitely the right thing to do.
She didn’t like how he looked—shifty, she thought.
Like he might just go out and get himself killed right when they were just starting to be friends.
“I get that, but no. You can find another way to be happy. Maybe make yourself a nice side career in movie reviewing or gradually dial back the wrestling once you’ve earned enough cash. Find yourself a boyfriend with a beard who can earn enough to pay for the fancy New York apartment.”
“You really think I could get a guy like that?”
“I know you could get a guy like that,” she said, so delighted he went with the joke that she didn’t notice his face at first. The smile in his eyes and on his lips slowly faded, until all that was left was a soft warmth that melted her from the inside out.
And that was before he spoke.
“You’re a really good person, you know that? Best I ever knew.”
Her eyes weren’t just stinging after that.
They were actively leaking.
“Great, now I’m crying again. That’s awesome. Good job!”
“I had to say it. You’re here trying to give me the life I want.”
“Anyone would want to do that, Tate.”
“Not the person I stole a life from.”
“You didn’t steal it. You borrowed it. And now you’re giving back way more than you ever took out.”
She expected a quiet nod in return. Or maybe some soft acceptance.
Instead, he threw up his hands. His head went back.
And his voice when he spoke was completely agonized.
“Oh you did not just say that. Why did you say that to me? Now I’m going to start bawling.”
“Hey, you started it! I wanted to have fun and instead you decided to tell me how all your hopes and dreams have basically died. Oh, and that you mostly feel like a big, gross dumbass, thanks to me.”
“No, not thanks to you, no that wasn’t what I was—” he started, but seemed to get so frustrated in the middle that he just stopped. He drew a line through the air with his hands, and decided to take a different tack altogether. “Okay, look, you were right. We need to have fun right now. We need to have, like, the most fun any human beings have ever had. You with me?”
“I’m with you. I’m absolutely with you.”
“Prepare yourself, girl, because fun is coming at you.”
“I’m so ready for it. Hit me with the fun,” she said.
About a second before every light in the place snapped off, with an audible clunk.
When she finally spoke, it was into the strange, still quiet that only happens in total darkness.
“I think that might have been a sign.”
“What? No way. Pitch blackness is perfect for the fun I had in mind.”
“It…it is? Because I was thinking it was more perfect for us getting butchered by the campus killer.”
“There is no campus killer,” he said, tone so sure she nearly believed it. And then he finished, completely deadpan: “The guy who got decapitated dragged that locker down onto himself.”
“There was a guy who got decapitated? Are you serious right now?”
“No, I’m absolutely not at all serious. I just wanted to see how high your voice would go.”
She splashed water—even though she suspected he was miles away. It was kind of hard to get a handle on his position, and not just because she couldn’t see six inches in front of her. She also suspected that he was constantly moving around now, as though the dark gave him freedom to do so. He wouldn’t suggest anything by moving suddenly closer. Or feel gross, when her eyes lit on his body.
And she knew this, because she felt the same way.
She was happy to stand in the shallower end now and reveal her T-shirt-clad body.
“You asshole. You know I crap my pants over slasher movies.”
“I did not know that, but am filing the information away for the horror module.”
That stopped her. Or did it stop him?
There was a sudden lack of splashing water, at least.
“You want to keep working
with me after this is done?”
“Oh god no. I was planning on healing all your wounds by never speaking to you again after this semester.” She could almost hear the eye roll. The wonderful, amazing eye roll. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’m definitely rethinking the seriousness, if that helps.”
“It does, considering we’re supposed to be having the fun now.”
“We are having the fun. The fun has increased by a good thirty percent already.”
“See? I know how to get a party started.”
“Is that what we’re going to do? Party? In a deserted, completely dark pool?”
“Well maybe not party, exactly. But think about it—I can’t see you. You can’t see me.”
“Oh are we playing a round of state the obvious?”
“I was thinking more of Marco Polo.”
She went to protest after that, but it died on her lips. After all, what would she be protesting for? He was suggesting a harmless game that kids played. There was nothing scary or weird about that, no matter how dark it was. Though she had to say, it did seem darker than it had before. The blackness felt denser somehow, now that everything was so suddenly silent.
Why was everything so suddenly silent?
He was still moving, she was sure he was. Yet there was nothing—not even the hush of his breathing as he got closer and closer, or the splash as he dove down to grab at her legs.
Though she knew he would probably do it soon.
It was the reason she kept quiet, when he called out, “Marco.”
“Come on, Letty. You have to say Polo.”
“If I say it you’ll get me.”
“I’m going to get you anyway if you keep talking.”
“That isn’t fair. I need to keep talking to ward off ghosts.”
“Now we got ghosts on top of campus killers?”
“It’s probably the spirits of his murder victims.”
“That is some sound horror movie logic right there.”
“Why thank you. I pride myself on it.”
“You know what’s not sound though?” he asked, and she went to answer him. It was just that he got there first: “Discussing horror movie logic when you’re trying to avoid me doing this.”
She didn’t mean to scream. Or to sound so delighted when she did the screaming. Part of her had thought she really was unsettled, that her heart was only pounding out of fear, that she was shivering because of nerves or anxiety. But then he got her in a kind of bear hug, and somehow everything was upside down and inside out. She was almost laughing through her yelp of surprise.
And then he spun her around, and that almost disappeared.
The noise that came out of her was rich and full bodied. It sounded like the sort of thing other people did, at fairgrounds while holding hands in Taylor Swift videos. She even threw her head back the way they did, and clung to his big arms tightly. It was only afterward that she thought about where his hand was: directly underneath her barely covered breasts.
Or how something very bare and low skimmed something equally bare and low on him, as he spun her.
Before he set her down, and pushed away.
“Okay, now it’s your turn. You find me,” he said, voice just a touch breathless.
Though she was sure it was just the effort of lifting her. That was probably why he seemed like he was struggling to contain it—he didn’t want to offend her.
“Oh god, Tate, I’m terrible about this. I couldn’t even hear your voice getting closer.”
“I’ll talk louder this time. Come on, give it a shot. It’s a pretty small pool and I’m a pretty big guy.”
Still, she hesitated before calling out to him.
And when she finally tried, her efforts were halting. Wavery, as though he’d poked a finger into all the places that were sure and steady and sent ripples darting through them.
“Marco.”
“Polo.”
His voice came from somewhere to her left, she knew. And when he replied a second time, she guessed correctly that he was only a few steps away. Yet for some reason, she didn’t go in that direction. She went the other way, arms out in front of her as though she was really trying. If he could see her, somehow, he would never suspect she was avoiding him.
“I don’t think you’re playing the game right, Letty.”
“It is beyond dark in here. How do you even know that?”
“I know it because I’m basically an inch from you and you’re disappearing over there.”
“Maybe I just want to build the suspense. Keep you guessing, and then, blammo.”
“Or maybe you just want to avoid touching me.”
“That’s not even remotely true, Tate.”
“Give me your hands, then.”
“What?”
She made a scrunched-up, incredulous face to back the word up.
But she didn’t know why. He couldn’t see it.
“Let me help you grab.”
“Oh no that—” she started, but never got to finish. The words snapped shut the moment he took hold of her hands. Just the way he went about it was enough to silence her—fingers like thick bracelets around her wrists, his grip sure and warm but not insistent.
And then he placed her hands on his body.
She had no idea where. It could have been his chest or his stomach or his right thigh for all she knew, though in truth it barely mattered. It was the darkness and the silence and the idea of what he was doing that really set her heart off. He was making her touch him, and not in an obviously innocent way. This wasn’t like resting her head on his shoulder—that had been as platonic as you can get.
She could have been a kid there.
Here everything was very adult. He slid her hands over him, so slowly she could make out almost every bump and groove. She felt the scar she had seen him get when Brian Wannamaker snapped one of his ribs through his skin; the oddly feminine-feeling curve of his waist; the braid of his abdominal muscles that always looked so brutal from across a field or a gym. They bulged, in her memory. They did vicious, violent things. But in the quiet darkness, everything was different
He was different. He could have been anyone standing there. Just some faceless hunk, gently persuading her to explore and uncover all the things she would never really get to again. She would never touch him like this in the daylight. And no other man like this was ever going to want her to. This was it, and for one delirious moment it made her eager. She came close to squeezing when he passed her fingers over his chest, and actually did when he got to his biceps.
In fact, by the time he got to his shoulders he wasn’t helping her at all. His hands left hers but she kept going, uncovering each new part like an archaeologist unearthing the bones of an undiscovered dinosaur. She marveled over the slabs of his shoulder blades and the hollow at the base of his back—so deep she felt sure she could have slid right down into it.
And his hips. Lord his hips.
He had those arrows of muscle, she knew he did. Yet it was shocking to feel them beneath her searching fingers. They formed such a deep ridge that—
“Letty, goddamn it!”
She snapped away the second she heard her name.
Though it was not the name that dragged her back to the reality of what she’d just done. It was his tone, sharp and frantic. It was that goddamn it on the end, almost cut off but not quite. They were the things that made it clear: she had almost gotten to the waistband of his shorts. Her hands had roamed below his navel, below his abs, below any point of friendly decency.
They might have even gone lower if he hadn’t shouted.
And she suspected he knew it. He wasn’t laughing, or saying anything else. There was just more of that thick silence—only now it seemed more like a nightmare than a secure little safety net. Even the darkness was no longer her friend, because darkness meant she couldn’t read his expression. Was he furious? Was this outrage? It seemed like it, but she had no way of knowing for
sure.
She couldn’t ask him. She could barely explain. All she managed was an abrupt it was just an accident.
But he didn’t respond. He kept his silence, until she suggested they get out of the pool.
And then he said the worst possible thing she could imagine.
“We…what? Why do we…are you…I think that…things.”
She had broken him, apparently.
Broken him with her wandering hands.
“I…I don’t know what any of that means.”
“It means that I have…thinkings.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Totally. Fine.”
“There were a lot of periods in that last sentence.”
“You have a lot of periods,” he said, like a little kid saying I’m rubber and you’re glue. Only then he seemed to realize it hadn’t come out right, and tried to correct himself. He tried to correct himself really, really badly. “In your sentences, I mean. Not in the other way, because obviously you have a lot of those. And that is a good thing, a normal thing, I wasn’t suggesting that was weird that you have periods.” He took a big breath—big enough that she could hear it. Big enough that she knew what it meant, before he verbally shook his head at himself. “Man, I am just saying a ton of words right now.”
“I know. I hear all of them.”
“That getting-out idea was probably the way to go.”
“Yeah, that seems best, I think.”
“Right, right, right. So lead the way,” he said.
And that was when she realized what her suggestion meant.
She was still in her underwear. Her soaking-wet underwear, which he would now be able to see in full Technicolor from head to foot. There would be no hiding under a veil of water once they climbed out. No darkness to cover her once he flicked on the lights. And he was going to flick them on, too. It was the first thing he mentioned once they’d fumbled their way out of the pool.
“Stay there,” he said. “I’ll go get them turned on.”
Then she had to just wait for her doom, in the dark.
Of course she thought about simply leaving. It would mean putting her wet clothes on, but she could manage that. And there were excuses she could make to him later. I needed the bathroom seemed plausible, as did I felt unwell. But by the time she’d come up with a plan he had returned, the light from the locker rooms now bright behind him. So bright, in fact, that she could see almost all of him.
Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1) Page 10
