Those Nights in Montreal

by Beverley Kendall

  Watching me intently, he throws off the comforter that had been covering his leanly, muscled thighs and swings his legs until his feet are planted on the floor. My toes curl into the carpet. Not a self-conscious bone in that gorgeous body. God, I hate him. I hate that he still has the power to make me—make me feel this.

  Quivery. On edge. Horny.

  Shh. I didn’t say that.

  “I guess that means you don’t remember what happened last night,” he states, subjecting my body to a thorough perusal. It’s the kind of heated look he always used on me in the past when he wanted sex. Sizzling hot sex. But I’m not the same girl he schmoozed and charmed before. I’ve learned my lesson when all things Scott are concerned.

  “What I do remember is you interfering where you had no business,” I snap irritably, secretly embarrassed at the situation I put myself in and the spectacle I must have made of myself.

  I’m not going to tell him how terrified I’d been that those guys were going to beat the crap out of him—that’d he’d get hurt real bad. Or that I’d almost died when I’d seen him get hit.

  And there’s no way I’m going to admit how grateful I am that he stopped me from doing something I definitely would have regretted. Cam may be hot but it’s obvious by what he did to Scott that he’s a total jerk. I can’t believe he and his friends were basically going to gang up on him, three against one. All I can say is thank God for Zach.

  “Like I’m going to let you go off with some guy you don’t know sloshed out of your mind,” he replies, scowling darkly.

  I hate that he’s right. “It’s really none of your business what I do or who I do it with. You had no right to interfere.” I’m saying the words but my voice lacks the emotion.

  At this, Scott comes to his feet and looks down at me. “That guy practically knocked you down,” he growls, looking angry and imposing as he towers over me.

  “It was an accident. He was trying to hit you.”

  “That ass hit me in the back. Is that the kind of guy you’re hooking up with these days. Pansy-ass jerks whose idea of fighting is knifing a guy in the back.” His nostrils are flaring so I know Scott’s in a rage. “What the hell were you doing with him, Bec? You don’t even know the guy.”

  “Well how do you think you get to know someone.” I know I’m being a bitch but it’s like I can’t stop myself from trying to hurt him. Hit him where he’s vulnerable.

  His eyes darken and his hand whips out grabbing my wrist. Before I know it I’m being hauled into his arms, my breast pressed up against his hard chest. “If sex is what you’re looking for, I’m right here. You don’t have to get it from some guy who’s been with half the girls in the school. You know me and I know you and sex is the one thing that was always good between us.” Despite the sexy growl of his voice and his erection hard against my stomach, I can tell by the hard glint in his eyes that he’s still angry.

  He’s turned on and pissed off. The throbbing between my legs renews. But I know I can’t let anything happen between us. No matter how much I might want to.

  “If I wanted to have sex with you believe me, you’d know,” I lie. I so do want. “Now I just want you to get your clothes on and get out of my apartment.” I pull out of his arms and his hands drop from my waist to his sides.

  If he was about to say something, my words stop him. Several moments of silence follow as we stare at each other. With his expression wiped clean of emotion, his bristled jaw firm and his mouth unsmiling, he’s nearly impossible to read.

  After a few more beats, Scott shakes his head, which does little to disturb his bedhead hair. “We need to talk.” His voice is rough and low. He’s not asking, it’s a demand.

  My stomach drops. I’m conscious of what I’m not wearing: things like a bra, pants and underwear that don’t leave both my butt cheeks bare. Of course, then there’s the lack of Scott’s clothing, the erection he can’t hide and the fact that he looks just as good tousled as he does all dressed up or in worn blue jeans. This is not a good place for me to be. Which is why I’ve done my best to avoid him since last summer. Since I broke it off.

  I clear my throat and try to collect my thoughts. “Well I don’t want to talk,” I say and make a move to go around him.

  He grabs my arm just below the elbow. I shiver at the contact, briefly closing my eyes. I can’t let him know how he still affects me so I turn my head when he pulls me firmly but gently toward him. “Talk to me, Becca,”

  His low plea has the power to make me forget. But only for a short time. How am I going to learn from my mistakes if I continue to make the same ones with the same person?

  God, this is just too hard. I shake my head in denial because I can’t see there’s anything more to say.

  Unfortunately for me, Scott’s not the kind of guy to just give up. Not if he wants something badly enough. If that were the case, we’d never have gotten together in the first place. Oh I’d thought he was hot alright, but at first glance, he’d looked like a player. I thought his interest would be fleeting and soon he’d be on to another girl. Plus, one of the girls at the orientation had told me he was from southern California. So even if I’d wanted, the distance would make anything happening between us impossible—at least during our senior year in high school.

  “I know you were freaked out last summer but everything turned out okay. It’s been over a year and I hoped you’d have gotten over it by now.”

  I blink and tip my head back to look up at him. Not everything turned out okay.

  We broke up didn’t we you idiot?

  The fight he’d put up when I told him we should call it quits had been token at best. He’d seemed more relieved than anything else, letting me go without much of a fight. He hadn’t even offered to slow things down. He’d just nodded like he understood and agreed that things weren’t working between us. It was only then that I’d known I done the right thing. The sane thing.

  There was no way in hell I was going to end up like my mother—as much as I love her to death. No way. She’d thought John was going to step up when she’d gotten pregnant with me but he’d turned his back on her…and me. And three years of phone calls, birthday gifts and Christmas presents don’t come remotely close to making up for a childhood of nothings.

  “What?” he prompts after several seconds of silence, eyeing me warily. Probably because I must be looking at him like he’s nuts.

  I step back to give myself room to breathe as I rub the back of my neck. “Scott, do you really think I broke up with you because I was freaked out about what almost happened?” I finally ask, staring intently into his eyes.

  “We were both freaked out,” he says.

  A calming sense of resolve comes over me. “Do you want to know the real reason I broke up with you?” I ask quietly. Back then he’d never really pressed me, demanded I come clean. He’d assumed I was being one hundred percent honest with him.

  “Real reason? What the hell does that mean?” he asks sharply, narrowing his gaze. “You said you needed space. That you realized after what happened you weren’t ready for anything serious. You said you were too young.”

  “And you believed that? Knowing how I felt about you, you believed that’s how I truly felt?” I don’t care if I’m not being logical. I don’t care if I sound like a crazy person. He should have known that couldn’t have been the real reason. The entire reason. He should have known.

  “God, Becca, what the hell was I supposed to believe if that’s what you told me?”

  “When had you ever been so quick to take me at my word? You always said you could tell when I wasn’t telling you the whole truth. Said you could tell when I was out-and-out lying. But you were sure quick to believe me when I say it’s over. And you want to know why?” My voice is rising by this time, into something that sounds choked and emotional. God I hate when that happens.

  “No but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” he says, the warmth gone from his eyes, his jaw set tight and his lips an omino
us line.

  “Because you wanted to break up with me. If what happened freaked me out, it traumatized you.”

  “I did not want to break up with you,” he states vehemently.

  I shake my head in denial and retreat a step. His response is to follow me step for step until we’re almost touching, chest-to-chest, his harsh breath stirring strands of my hair.

  “Yes you did, Scott.”

  “What the hell, Becca? Why the hell would you think that?”

  “Why? Why?” I cry as the scene rushes from the past to assault me sharp and vivid. “Because the second I told you I was pregnant you couldn’t get far away from me fast enough.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SCOTT

  Talk about being blindsided.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t bail on you?” I sputter out my protest.

  Eyes storming and her hair a dark stream of unruly tangles, she stamps her foot. I’m momentarily distracted by the sight of her boobs bouncing. I’m brought back to earth when she jabs her finger into my chest, her nail sinking in deep enough to make we wince.

  “Scott, you went home the day after I told you and I could barely get in touch with you for a whole week. I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know when I was getting the shaft.”

  “Wait a minute, you knew I had to go home between the summer sessions.”

  I’m treated to an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Yeah and how very convenient for you. Something comes up at home at just the right time. I betcha if I hadn’t called to tell you the good news, your ass would never have come back. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were already planning to transfer to another school.”

  I’m stunned. I can’t even believe what I’m hearing and the amount of venom coming at me. And all this time I’d thought she’d been mad at me because she’d seen me making out with Angela three weeks after she’d dumped me.

  Yeah, you got that right. She dumps me and is pissed to high heaven when she sees me with another girl. No one can ever tell me females aren’t the irrational sex. Guys don’t pull crap like this.

  Shit, I still can’t believe she really thought I’d just leave her high and dry if I’d gotten her pregnant. I’ll admit to having done some shitty things in my life, but I did not—would not—do that.

  We’re too young.

  We got too serious too fast.

  I don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone right now.

  That’s what she’d said when she broke things off. And I’d believed that she’d believed it at the time.

  Shit, I don’t know that much about how a girl’s mind works, but I figured it had been a normal reaction to “the scare”. I’d given our “breakup” a week, two weeks tops. By then I figured she’d have calmed down and she’d be missing me like crazy just like I’d been climbing the walls without her. But when she’d ignored my calls and texts and refused to even see me the week after, I’d been pissed the fuck off. Who does shit like that? Go out with a guy—have sex with a guy and tell a guy you love him—for almost a year—and then refuse to talk to him again? And who breaks up with a guy the morning after you had sex with him?

  “That’s a load of shit and you know it. I came back didn’t I?”

  “After,” she cries, her voice shrill. “You came back only after I’d gone to the doctor and she ran the blood test that told me I wasn’t pregnant. Of course you could come back then, when you knew you had nothing to worry about anymore.”

  I throw my hands up in frustration. “If you felt that way, why the hell did you have sex with me the night before? What was it, like one for the road or something?”

  Her response is a mutinous silence as she steps back and crosses her arms over her chest, pulling the t-shirt taut against her breasts. She’s pissed and I refuse to be sidetracked by the sight of her nipples protruding from beneath the white cotton.

  Sex with her that night had been different. I’d gotten off—as always—but I’m not sure she had even though she’d said she did. She’d been even more nervous than our first time. I had to talk her out of filling the condom with water to make sure there weren’t any holes in it. I’d assured her that with the condom and the fact that she was on the pill, we were more than protected. From that I’d naturally assumed she’d been terrified of getting pregnant. Obviously, that hadn’t been all of it. She’d been terrified of getting pregnant by me. That hurts. Hurts worse than I could’ve imagined.

  I stifle the hurt and yes, a little bit of anger too. Calmly, I say, “No Becca, I would never leave you to deal with something like that on your own. Never.” There’s no way I would abandon my kid. Not my own flesh and blood. And I would never have abandoned her. I’m not that much like her father.

  With a sharp toss of her head and a glower, she marches past me. “Yeah right. You can say that now but where the hell were you when I went to the doctor? Where were you when I was sweating it out wondering what I was going to do about school or how I was going to break it to my mother? Where the hell were you then, Scott? Oh, I know, you were home, where I was lucky if I was able to get you on the phone.”

  I watch as she grabs my jeans and shirt I’d hung over her desk chair. Spinning around, she marches back and shoves them at me. My hands reflexively close over the bundled clothes.

  “Becca, I told you I had to go back because of the stuff going on with my parents’ business. You said you understood.” Okay, so maybe that had been fudging the truth a little but the foundations of the truth were all there. My mom’s career is essentially just that, my parents’ business whether I like it or not. I don’t most of the time.

  “You were obviously lying to me because you wanted out. I wasn’t going to argue with you about it.”

  “Dammit, Becca, I wasn’t lying.”

  She goes still and suddenly she looks weary and drained. Tipping her head back, she inhales a deep breath and briefly closes her eyes. In that moment of silence, I feel a tightness in my chest. I take in the long line of her neck and the smooth unblemished skin of her face. I want to kiss her so badly it’s like a physical pain. I haven’t kissed her in over a year—the most miserable year of my life.

  “Listen, Scott. I really don’t want to dredge up the past so why don’t you get dressed and leave. Leave me alone.” Then she’s walking back toward the bed, and the ache in my chest worsens.

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one who broke up with you. Don’t forget, you’re the one who broke it off with me.”

  She stops at the foot of her bed and turns around. “I told you I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Well tough shit. I want to talk about it. You come at me with all this shit and I don’t even get to defend myself?” I know this is probably the wrong approach to take with her if I want to get her back but at this point, I don’t give a flying fuck. Anyway, it’s not like I have a ton to lose. She hasn’t said a word to me since she saw me with Angela last year.

  “Was I scared when you told me you were pregnant? Hell yeah I was. Which eighteen-year-old guy all set to start college wouldn’t be? We were both scared and neither of us can deny that. But would I have just left you to deal with it all by yourself? No. No. A hundred times no. Not only did my parents raise me better than that, my own conscience wouldn’t allow it. I loved you, Becca. You were the most important person in my life.” My hands tighten around my clothes.

  She is standing eerily still and blinking furiously, her eyes having taken on a glassy sheen.

  “Scott.” She doesn’t so much as say my name as she breathes it, the sound thready and hoarse.

  “I know I probably could have handled things better. It just came at a really bad time.” Not that knocking up your almost eighteen-year-old girlfriend could ever come at a good time. “But I want you to give me another chance. I want you back.”

  There, I’d laid it all out on the line. I’d uttered the words I hadn’t said aloud since I started my pursuit to win her back three months ago. Initia
lly, I’d thought sure and steady would win the race—like a damn turtle—but I hadn’t counted on Becca’s stubbornness and her unwillingness to forgive. But then, I’d thought it had only been about seeing me with Angela. I hadn’t known all this.

  “I don’t want you to answer me now.” I know exactly what the answer will be if she does. “I just want you to think about it and everything I said. I would never lie to you about this.” Although I know eventually I’ll have to come clean about my past and my family. But I can’t tell her until I’m sure she can handle it. Until I’m sure I won’t lose her again. Until I’m sure she’ll forgive me for keeping her in the dark.

  I leave her standing in the middle of her room and get dressed in the bathroom. When I’m ready to leave, she’s nowhere in sight and her bedroom door is closed. Obviously, she doesn’t want to see me before I leave.

  On my way out, I run into her other roommate. April halts abruptly when she sees me, her green eyes going wide. It’s pretty early but she doesn’t appear to be coming in from an all-night bender. Nope, gorgeous as usual, she looks freshly made up, her clothes spotless and unwrinkled.

  Her hand is still on the handle of the front door when she looks at me before taking a wary look behind me. “Scott, this is a surprise,” she says, slowly enunciating every word. “Um, is…?”

  “Becca’s in her room,” I interject when she hesitates. I don’t know exactly what she’s heard about me. Coming from Becca, I’m sure it’s nothing good. Olivia is a different story. She doesn’t despise me.

  “Ah,” she says nodding, though I’m sure she’s confused as all hell.

  “I was just leaving,” I say stating the obvious.

  “Cool, see you around.”

  I nod and then I’m out of there.

  On my way to my car, I start feeling uneasy about leaving the timeframe of her answer so open-ended. I don’t want to give her too much time so I pull out my cell and text her.

  I’ll give you a call in a couple days.