“I’m sorry?” I say to him, not the least bit sorry. “You have needs involving your penis in Shayna’s vagina?”
“In my mouth, actually,” she interjects and it’s such a skanky thing to say I feel my mouth drop open. How was this my best friend? What the hell sort of circumstances led to my linking myself to the girl who one-by-one alienated our combined group of friends? And Drew! I glare at him.
“This breakup is about blowjobs?” I say a little too loudly.
“Several.” Shayna smirks.
Every inch of me wants to tear her dark hair out by the roots. But I’ve seen enough daytime TV to know not to be the girl who yells at the other girl while the man in the room sits smugly and watches them fight over him.
The swine.
A rendition of “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood (sung by a very drunk blonde in a very tight dress) plays from the stage behind me as I stand up from my seat. Neither of my exes seems to notice the blatant appropriateness of the song, but I do. And while I don’t possess a Louisville Slugger and Drew doesn’t have a four-wheel drive truck, I feel inspired.
“Any reason you waited until tonight to share this with me?” I ask.
My father offered to take me to a nice restaurant, give me my gift, treat me like a princess. But no. I turned him down. Told him Drew had “special plans” to take me out and surprise me.
In his defense, I am surprised.
“This was your epic plan for my birthday?” I ask.
“No.” He makes a sharp hand gesture and looks almost excited to have found some ground to stand on that’s not mired in quicksand and R.O.U.S.es. “This was never the plan. Michaela and Jon and Bethany were planning on coming, too.”
More his friends than mine. Mine have absconded to college where they made college friends, went to college parties, and in general left those of us in Baybrook to our simple lives.
“We were supposed to start here and finish at Milson’s summer party,” he adds.
Oh, my bad. The “big plan” for the night was a crappy karaoke bar followed by a party not thrown for me. What a jerk. I down my last tequila shot, and then, what the hell, Shayna’s tequila shot. I don’t need it, technically, but I earned it.
“I’m going to have to get tested for skank diseases,” I say, curling my lip at Shayna. She sputters and crosses her arms but, wisely, says nothing. Maybe because Drew has put a hand on her arm communicating to her that her input would not be welcome at this juncture.
I decide, while watching him stroke her arm in a sweet way, that I’m not nearly done drinking. I’ll buy a bottle of wine on the way home and drink it in the comfort of my plush bedroom. Surrounded by teddy bears from my youth under my canopy bed. Maybe I’ll even dig out my old diary and write down how much I hate the two people I used to love four and a half minutes ago.
“And where are Michaela and Jon and Bethany? Did everyone just…cancel?” I gesture with my arms, aware I’m standing and talking loudly and drawing the attention from the girl yowling onstage. She’s trying. She really is.
“I texted everyone and told them to go to Milson’s. I said we were skipping Pinky’s,” Shayna explained. “I didn’t think you’d want them here.”
“We were trying to save you the embarrassment,” Drew says, his cheeks going a ruddy shade. As if my embarrassment is the issue?
“God. You are an idiot,” I say, but the anger is starting to burn off leaving something else behind. Regret. And the kind of sadness that’s palpable and cannot be penetrated by ice cream and chick flicks. I feel a pang of loss as I consider the friends who left me behind. If I’d have gone to law school like my father encouraged, how different would my life have been?
I can’t do this right now. I cannot have a breakdown in the middle of Pinky’s for God’s sake. Anger is my only ally.
“It’s only fair we tell you before things between us go further.” Shayna’s gaze slides to one side to where a pink Cosmopolitan in a fancy glass rests by her manicured nails. “Well, that was the plan. We almost made it but couldn’t resist…”
She twines those talons with Drew’s hand and my temper hits apocalyptic levels.
“You had sex with her on my birthday?” I shriek. The room stills. The girl singing stops her warbling. All that’s left is the canned background vocals on the track and someone behind me whispering, “Wow.” Through my fuzzy vision and my heartbeat sloshing in my ears, I straighten my shoulders and mutter, “You two deserve each other.”
Grabbing Shayna’s drink, I dump it over Drew’s head and leave her to clean up her new bed buddy. As for me, I snatch my new Kate Spade (gift from my father), flip my freshly blown-out and highlighted hair (gift from my stepmother), and march out of Pinky’s without a single glance over my shoulder.
I promise myself as my feet hit the pavement of Pinky’s parking lot that I won’t cry, but I’m pretty sure I’ll lose that battle sooner than later. With my focus squarely on the nearest open establishment that will sell me a bottle of wine, I set off on foot.
A blister on my baby toe starts hurting me after about twenty minutes of walking up the shoulder of Medway Road. There is a closed gas station on one side of the street, an automotive garage on the other, and next to that, a convenience store that looks as welcoming as a back alley lined with hookers and drug dealers. I bite down on my lip, considering it’s safer inside than out here. The bulbs in the lamps flanking the parking lot are burned out save for one, and it is flickering on and off, humming louder than my tequila buzz. So. Not the nicest store or the best part of my town, but this is Baybrook, Missouri, we are talking about. Even the bad parts of town aren’t that bad. Nothing happens here, unless you count Main Street parades, an occasional pants-on-the-flagpole prank at the high school, and parasite boyfriends cheating on their girlfriends.
I shouldn’t drink-and-walk, but there was no way I was letting Drew take me home or calling my father to pick me up. I couldn’t tell him about Drew. About Shayna. And my stepmom…well, I couldn’t tell her either but I totally would have called her first if she was home. But she’s not. She’s spending an impromptu girls’ week in North Carolina. She wasn’t going to go because it was my birthday, but I assured her it wasn’t a big deal. Her friend is getting a divorce from a man who recently discovered he’s gay, and I reasoned that my turning twenty-one sort of paled in comparison to Julia’s friend’s relationship woes.
Then again, mine is running a close second.
Tears burn my nose and a fat, warm droplet spills down my cheek. Sure, now I’m crying. And what’s worse is there is no one to comfort me when I need it the most. I take one more look around the parking lot, seriously expecting a tumbleweed to blow by, before sniffling and wiping my tears away with my fingertips. I pull myself together and grasp the handle of the door to the 7-Eleven.
I think of how Drew drove me tonight, picking up Shayna on the way. I thought he was running late because he had to work. I now know it’s because he and Shayna had…ugh. What a horrible best friend.
Ex–best friend.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Only the last “idiot” is meant for me. Because I was the biggest idiot here. I should have seen Drew’s and Shayna’s lies sooner. I should have recognized the way Drew had been pulling away from me lately. The way Shayna didn’t talk to me as often as she used to. I should have held on to the friends who mattered and taken my father’s advice about going away to school.
I blink my eyes before another assault of hot tears, vowing not to slide all the way into the depression spiral until I buy my gas station wine. I’ll take it home and run a bath and listen to Ed Sheeran, and then I can cry. Cry and sit in the water until I’m pruney and freezing. My tear ducts comply, and soon I am streak-free and composed enough to go inside. I’m going to have to call a cab, though, because I am not hoofing it from here to my front porch in the middle of the night.
I step over the threshold, narrowly avoiding a wad of bubble gum smashed into the dirt on the
floor. Lettering stenciled on the back wall announces WINE and BEER and SODA over their corresponding coolers. I walk directly to the wine portion and choose a bottle that meets my needs. This stuff will most definitely make me drunk. I figure it will also plague me with an epic headache in the morning, but whatever. Beggars can’t be…
My thoughts stall as I spot the only other patron in the store with me. From my angle behind a rack of potato chips, trail mix, and other snack foods, I can only make out his profile, but his profile is enough. I know him.
You know how you can’t remember things from your past until you do? Until something familiar calls it up? It may be a little thing. An insignificant thing. Then in a perfect moment of symmetry where time stands still, a memory coats your brain like Magic Shell on your favorite vanilla bean ice cream.
I’m in a bubble of time where everything is frozen as my brain catalogs this new information. Admittedly, the cataloging is happening at a sluggish pace given my beverage choices this evening. The guy ahead of me in line is tall, really tall, with medium-length dark brown hair. His jaw is clean-shaven, his lips are full, and his expression is as tortured as it’s ever been.
I tighten my grip on the chilled, cheap bottle of wine and call up a name I haven’t thought about in years.
Tucker Noscalo.
He must feel me staring because he turns, gazing through unkempt locks of hair falling almost seductively over his forehead.
Our eyes lock. Stunning blue, sometimes gray, his narrowed gaze eats into my very soul the longer we stare.
He clenches his jaw—the muscles in his cheek twitch—then turns away, his hair once again falling over his face. The snack foods and soda fountain and filthy tile vaporize and I see only the memory from years ago. We were in the eighth grade, which would have made me fourteen at the time. Seven years ago.
A lifetime.
He’d clenched his jaw, then, too, viewing me through the veil of thick eyelashes like he had a second ago. It was the first time I noticed his scars. Several V-shaped cuts tracking vertically up his forearm. He was a cutter, I assumed. And the moment he stood two lockers down from mine and noticed where my eyes went, he yanked down the sleeve of his hoodie and speared me with an angry glare.
The Noscalo boys were bad seeds. Everyone knew to steer clear of both Tucker and his younger brother, Jeremy. But in that moment I felt like I truly saw him—like we saw each other. Then the moment was over, and I was going to class and trying to figure out the cause of the weird hum inside my belly. Tucker was closed off, quiet, and very bad news. A cop’s kid, I assumed his habit of bucking authority was akin to a preacher’s daughter sinning because she was supposed to be good.
Two years after that, Tucker and some local lowlife robbed a liquor store. Tucker went from “bad news” to certified juvenile delinquent. Dangerous. But he intrigued me as much as he scared me. There was something about him I related to back then, even though I didn’t know what it was. It was just a gut call I couldn’t explain.
I blink and the world comes rushing back, pulling him into sharp focus. Then he turns his back and gives me no indication of whether he recognizes me or not. It’s not like we were friends back then. More, he was a guy I watched from the corner of my eye until he wasn’t there to watch any longer.
The clerk, a short dark-skinned man with great hair, wearing a crisp white button-down shirt, finishes bagging two grocery sacks for Tucker. Seriously, didn’t he know better than to buy his weekly groceries at a place like this? Every item in here is overpriced.
He wraps a hand around the grocery sack, crinkling the brown paper, and I decide not to let him leave without saying hello. Where Tucker is concerned, my curiosity always edged out the fear.
“I know you,” I say to his back.
He lets go of the bags and turns to face me fully. My breath catches as I get a good look at the faded blood decorating his white T-shirt, at least the part I can see beneath his zipped leather jacket. He shoves the receipt and his change into a front pocket and I notice dried blood on his knuckles, too. My face goes cold, like I’ve gone into shock from the sum of the evening’s events. Yet I’m more curious than afraid.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice quiet.
His blue-gray eyes find mine and shock is replaced with warmth. Like honey is oozing down my spine and pooling in my belly.
He’s as tall as he ever was: well over six feet, but not as rangy as I remember. The leather coat covers shoulders that appear broader and, from what I can see, stretches across a well-defined chest. That’s different. My memory of Tucker doesn’t include ample pecs. Or traps, I think as my gaze trickles down his throat and along the side of his neck.
God, he’s gorgeous. Straight nose, high cheekbones, a sharp, angled jaw. His hair is longer, shaggy, with a bit of curl. His lips are full and enviable. And frozen into a firm line. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tucker Noscalo smile.
He’s also dressed the same as I remember in high school: worn jeans, Chuck Taylors, white T-shirt. I inspect the blood spatters on the cotton, but other than his knuckles, spot no sign of injury. I remember suddenly, shockingly, that he’d been to prison and further wonder if he got out or if he busted out. Did people still escape from prison?
I take a step forward rather than back, intrigued. “Morgan,” I say when he doesn’t respond.
He’s a criminal. But he paid for the sundries in the overstuffed bags on the counter, I argue with myself.
“Morgan Young,” I sort of repeat. “We shared a chem class a million years ago.”
He’s staring. Not speaking. And he does not look happy. I’m not sure if he’s not happy because he remembers me or because he doesn’t. If he’s trying to remember who I am or decide if he should rob the place after all and take me as a hostage. To say that I’m a little nervous would be like saying the Arizona desert is a bit warm. Oddly, I’m not sure what I’m nervous about…because I’d once harbored a crush on the guy and am attempting to talk to him, or because I’m in imminent peril and my fight-or-flight response has kicked in.
Damn tequila. I should never drink it. It makes me fuzzy; take risks I shouldn’t. Case in point, I continue my one-sided conversation.
“It’s my birthday. Twenty-one today.” When he doesn’t respond, I run my fingers along the edge of a bag of Cheetos. “Yep. The big two-one.” I leave the Cheetos behind. No sense in buying food to soak up my upcoming alcohol buzz. Because when I get home, I am getting duh-runk.
He surprises me by walking over in two long-legged steps. He moves easily, his lithe gait suggesting he isn’t injured. So the blood must belong to someone else. I stand my ground, trying to reflect the confidence of his approach. It’s all for show. I have no confidence tonight. He sizes me up, his eyes skating down my body and back up, and I wonder if he can sense I’m not having the happiest of birthdays.
He lifts the wine bottle out of my hand, I assume to inspect the label. He isn’t going to be very impressed. Even I have my doubts about the label’s claim proclaiming the gas station wine tastes like “strawberry fields.” Rather than hand it back, he walks the bottle to the counter and drops the change onto the counter. The clerk rings him up, casting me an unsure glance and I feel the need to defend myself.
“I’m twenty-one,” I say.
The cash register spits out a receipt and the clerk offers it to Tucker, but Tucker holds up a hand to turn it down. Then he gathers his groceries and walks out a pair of doors opposite the ones I entered.
I’m left standing awkwardly in front of the clerk and my now-paid-for bottle of wine. Do I show him my ID or just take my gift and run? Option B sounds the best, though I won’t be running very far. I palm the neck of the bottle, but halfway to the entrance from the poorly lit parking lot, I pause to study the doors Tucker disappeared through. He didn’t say a single word to me. And I didn’t thank him.
You really should thank him.
I could at least go talk to him while I call for a cab. Wh
at’s the harm?
I come up with about twelve answers on the spot, but ignore them all. I’m so completely taken by his silence, his presence, his hotness, that I spin on my heel and walk to the other side of the store.
But the driving force is another memory altogether. A memory of when he stood up for me, protected me, during a moment I needed protected but didn’t know it. A moment where Tucker Noscalo recognized the danger that I, cocooned in my perfect world, had completely overlooked.
That’s why I slip out the door now and go to him. Under the guise of saying thank you, and because I have to know if he remembers me. I spot him piling his groceries into the backseat of a black car that had seen better days. It suits him. He spots me and stands slowly, and in that moment, as our eyes meet over the top of the car, I decide gas station wine shared with a handsome, mysterious, criminal is a huge step up from my evening thus far.
I’ve never been so wrong.
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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Fighting for Devlin (Lost Boys #1) Page 22
