by J. L. Beck
“No,” I say, twisting the cap off and putting the bottle to my mouth. Her eyes grow wide again. I don’t know if she likes drinking or not, but I swore if she says she doesn’t want me to drink, I will put the bottle down.
Then she does something totally unexpected. She reaches across the center console to grab the bottle from my hands and brings it up to her own pink, plump lips. I want so badly to grab her and bring her onto my lap. Her eyes close tightly as she takes a swig then shoves the bottle back at me.
“That is the worst shit ever,” she says, her eyes watering. With a disgusted look on her face, she wipes the small droplets of whiskey that are left on her lips with the back of her hand.
“It is pretty strong for a half pint like yourself,” I say, slamming back a chug or two. The warm liquid flows down my throat and into my belly, immediately warming me all over.
We sit quietly watching the sunset as more and more cars park around us. They aren’t up here for nearly the same thing as us, to admire the beauty of life. Then again, I wouldn’t mind doing what they are doing with Kennedy.
She reaches across the seat again for the bottle. This time I stop her though. Her eyes linger on me, and I have to force myself not to reach across and grab her.
“I want a drink…” Looking at Kennedy, never in a million years did I think I would have found someone like her.
“Here,” I say, giving her the bottle. I reach for the door handle and get out. I go to the trunk and get out the blanket I have back there. I’m not the romantic type, but I’m not going to make her sit on the ground. She is like a fine China to me.
“What are you doing?” she asks slightly giggly as she gets out of the car. She holds the bottle firmly in her hands. She looks calm, maybe even free.
“Are you drunk already?” I joke. I know she doesn’t drink, so I know she needs to go slowly, especially with whiskey. No matter what way you looked at it, she is a lightweight.
“Negative, ghost rider.” I pass her, slipping the bottle from her hands and into mine. I shoot her a smile that has most girls spreading their legs. I lay the blanket down over the small sprigs of grass. There are rocks on both sides of us, and it kind of feels like a little fort with the trees above as our canopy.
“Good. I don’t want to have to carry you back to the car.” I actually wouldn’t mind carrying her anywhere, to hold her body in my hands, to run my fingers over the dips and curves of her luscious…
“Can I ask you something?” she asks, interrupting my very nice thoughts.
“Sure. Isn’t that the point of today? Getting to know one another?” I have to know her more than anyone else.
“I suppose…” Her voice stops and her eyes grow large. I see a terror and agonizing pain flow through her. Someone behind us is making a bunch of racket, but I didn’t pay it any attention until now.
I turn around, taking notice of a chick being bent over the hood of a car. To me it is not a big deal, but to virgin ears well… I’m sure it is disturbing. Not so disturbing that it should scare her, though.
Then I hear it: the scream of a woman, the woman face down on the car. Above her I can see a man, about my height holding her firmly in place with one hand as he uses his other hand to undo his zipper.
It is then that I see red. Every bone in my body pushes to bring this fucker to the end of his life. I’m a douche, but not even I would do something like that.
I get up, hearing Kennedy’s protest to not start a fight. Once I am directly behind him, I tap him on the shoulder. The girl struggles to get free, whimpering.
“What the fuck….” he mutters, taken completely by surprise as he turns around. It’s then that I pull my fist back, plowing right into his nose over and over again. He’s a disgrace to the male species and I don’t stop until there’s blood coating my hands and Kennedy’s screaming.
I look up from the mess, the reality of what I’ve done sinking in. I release the man, but not before getting a look at his face. Sam? Suddenly it all makes sense. He rolls over to his side, groaning loudly. I kick his foot, wanting him to get up so I can deliver another blow to his face. I could kick him, but I’m not the type to kick a man when he’s down. That’s more my father’s thing.
“Get up!” I yell. I know everyone’s eyes are on me. I know Kennedy is scared, but at that moment, nothing matters to me more than making this pitiful excuse of a human pay. He gets to his knees, his chin raising ever so slowly.
“You’ll pay for this,” he says, spitting blood from his mouth.
I should feel badly, but I don’t. I bend down, gripping his jaw in my hand. My fingers ache to crush his jaw, so he can never mutter another word to anyone.
“Next time you try and take advantage of a woman, maybe make sure there isn’t anyone around to hear her screams. Or better yet, just don’t do it.” I can’t help myself as I bring my knee quickly to his chin. Sam falls to the ground helplessly. His body gives out.
I turn around, anger still raging inside of me. I don’t want to see the look of disgust on Kennedy’s face for what I just did. She watches me, her eyes running up my body. The way she’s looking at me is turning me on; then again, the built up aggression and having to hold myself back aren’t helping either.
I take a step toward her, raising my hands to calm her down, but she shudders away from me. I notice the tears streaming down her face, and my heart breaks knowing I’m the reason. I tried not to hurt her, but I did anyway.
I look at the girl that he had pinned to the top of his car.
“Are you okay?” I ask, not even recognizing my own voice. How could he do that to a girl and assume it was okay? My eyes skit back to his body on the ground. A quiet cry comes from the girl. The lighting is bad, but I can see the worry on her face. There isn’t any fear though, and that makes me worry. Has he done this more than once? Has he been attempting to do this to others? What if this happens to Kennedy? My mind heads down a path I can’t fathom, so many thoughts occurring at once.
I turn my attention back to the girl. “Are you really okay?” I’m not leaving until she gives me an answer.
She nods her head. I look down at Sam, making sure he’s was still out, then I walk away. I should ask her if she needs a ride or something, but I can’t handle another moment in his presence.
Kennedy follows me as I walk back to the blanket. I feel like I walk miles before I make it back to the blanket.
“You didn’t have to do that!” I look up into Kennedy’s bright, blue eyes. There’s some serious pent-up aggression in there, but there’s also something else. Why is it so bad that I stopped that asshole from fucking up someone’s life? Unless she has a secret that I don’t know about, I just don’t understand why she is mad at me. This will teach Sam to leave her alone too.
“Would you rather I had let him do it?” That remark comes out snarkier than necessary, so I wipe my bloody hands on the blanket and take a rather large drink of whiskey.
“I would rather have you tell him to stop than to cause a huge fight! He can sue you, Ryder, and make your life hell.” She’s talking as if she knows from experience, and I’ll be damned if that doesn’t make me want to head right back over there and bury him six feet in the ground.
“Are you not telling me something, Blondie?” My voice comes out deeper than intended, making me sound all dark and raging.
She takes a step away from me as if she’s afraid or about to run. No way in hell am I letting her run away from me out here.
“I have nothing more to tell you than I already have.” Her words don’t wobble, but her eyes say something else. They are cast down as if she can’t bear to look me in the eyes.
I push off the blanket, coming to stand directly in front of her.
“From the way you reacted to what just went down, it sure seemed like it was a lot more than just something small. It sure seemed as if you knew firsthand what he was capable of. Has he done that to you?” I’m tense as I wait for her response. All I’m seein
g in that moment is red. His blood will be dripping from my hands if he ever touches her like that.
“No,” she mumbles. It isn’t enough for me, though. She’s hiding something else.
“Tell me, now, before I go over there and beat the rest of it out of him.” It’s not a threat, and she knows it. I will not hesitate to go over and fuck him up even more.
“It’s you. You cause more problems for me by doing this. You may have stuck up for that girl, which was the right thing, but once he finds out who did that to him, he’s going to come for me. He already makes me life hell. We used to be best friends, and honestly I’m not even sure where it went wrong….” She pauses for a brief second. “That’s not the point though. Sam will make our lives hell; he will spread rumors…”
I can see and feel it in her. She’s genuinely afraid of that asshole. I know whatever he has on her is deep, so deep that she fears doing the wrong thing will bring her some sort of pain. No fucking way is that okay with me, not by any means.
“I would love to see him try. I was beat growing up. Pretty sure I could take a whipping from him.” I joke about it, but we both know I will blast him into the next year if he fucks with me or her.
A look of shock shows back at me. “Ryder, you don’t understand the power he has. You don’t understand what you have done by doing something like that.” Her voice is so quiet.
I reach a hand out to her, but she pulls away, looking past me. I am growing angrier with every passing second that she’s ignoring me. Who does she think she is to tell me that I can or can’t do something, to think that she can control me?
“He scares you, and I get that, but this is me, Kennedy. The fucked up me who you thought you could save. Look now… Am I worth saving?” I let out a hysterical laugh as if I’m a crazy ass, mad scientist.
She glares at me, a full on daggers to the head glare. She’s fuming; I can see the flames in her eyes, ready to give me a good licking, and I like it. No, I love it. I want to spark something else in her.
“Let’s go.” I grab the blanket off the ground and turn around to find a missing Kennedy. My gaze swings around. I peer into the car but see nothing. Then a branch to my left snaps, drawing my attention.
“Kennedy…” I growl, grinding my teeth together. I go from wanting to take her against the car to wanting to throw her over my shoulder in three seconds flats.
I throw the shit on the ground and trudge over to where I heard the snapping of sticks. I see Kennedy attempting to make her way through the brush as if she’s a real life ranger.
“Don’t be stupid, Kennedy… Come back here.” It’s like trying to coax someone off the ledge. She turns around, looks at me, and continues onward. Letting out a huge sigh, I take a step forward. There are branches in every direction, like it’s a trap.
I hear her quiet cries as I grow closer to her. Anxiety fills my stomach. Did she get hurt without me noticing? I take another large step. Reaching out to her, I wrap my arm around her, holding her in place. She turns into my chest as if giving up.
“Are you okay?” I ask as calmly as I can while having all this built up aggression.
She sniffles as if she’s holding back tears. I feel my heart constricting. The fear of losing or hurting her is enough to erase anything else that’s important in my mind.
“He’s going to do something. It’s going to be bad, and it’s going to affect both of us. You know that, right?” Her voice is muffled into my chest. Her breathing is heavy as well, and I can’t tell if it’s because of what’s going on or because of the close proximity of our bodies.
“Let him, K. Let him try to break us. I want to see him try. I want to see him even attempt to make a stab at you. You know why?” I grip her chin and turn her face up toward mine.
“Why?” she whispers.
“Because I have been wanting him to give me a reason to put him in the ground since I met you. Since I had seen the fragileness that is within you. He’s hurt you, and you don’t have to tell me about it right now because I know it’s more than you’re ready to talk about. Just know that I know he fucked you over, and if he gives me the fuel to fuck him up, I will.”
“That’s not the point, Ryder,” she murmurs, pulling her face from my grasp so that she can lay her head against my chest. My heart beats frantically as she does so.
I don’t know how to soothe anyone, especially her, but I try. My fingers weave into her hair. I run my fingers through the locks, until her breaths even out, until I can feel her melting, becoming the very liquid that I will absorb. I know I am dangerous, but I am starting to think Kennedy is even more dangerous. She has the power to bring me to my knees. I give no one that power.
“Kennedy…” I whisper. I am uncomfortable standing in this brush, sticks poking me in the back.
“Hmmm…” She sounds as if she’s about to nod off into a deep sleep.
“He won’t hurt you. What he did back there could land him in jail. Just know that if he messes with you, I won’t be able to stop myself from doing something to him.”
She doesn’t respond to anything I say and it feels as if she sinks even deeper into me. I know this night changes everything. She has become a permanent part of me, and nothing will ever change that.
I have given her the key to my heart; I have gone soft for one person and one person only. I am falling...
***
“If you were more like your brother, maybe I would think better of you!!” My father screamed at me. I was only ten at the time. His hands gripped my shoulders hard as he shook me. I could feel my teeth rattling and my eyes rolling.
“If I tell you to do something and you don’t obey again… You will regret defying me.” I could tell by the look on his face that he meant every word he said. The bruises that would be on my shoulders from his grip would be a reminder to me.
“I’m sorry dad…” I said quietly, my eyes cast down at the ground. I didn’t dare look him in the eyes. It was like begging to be beaten again. If I could stay low and out of his way then he would leave me alone.
“No, but you will be.” That was his form of dismissal, to simply say something and then walk away… It was my warning of pain to come. He wanted me to be afraid of him, and even at a young age I knew that. It took a beating or two, but eventually I learned.
I cleaned up the milk I spilled. Yes, that’s what pushed him over the edge. He was like a ticking time bomb. Some things bothered him and others didn’t. I was the only one he ever hurt. The only one he ever took his rage out on.
That thought alone caused pricks of moisture to form in my eyes. I shook my head grabbing the dish towel from the counter.
“Want to go outside and throw the football?” Rex asked. I finish wiping my mess up before responding to him. I don’t want dad to come back in here and see it’s not cleaned up yet.
“Hey… what’s wrong?” Rex said in my ear, his hand gripped my shoulder in the very same place dad did. I winced, but covered it up with a shrug. I had to... I couldn’t let Rex know what happened. It would kill him. It would break our already broken family.
“Nothing… I’ll come outside.” I covered it all with a smile. A mask that covered the pain like a band aid. As if it were the easy to make the pain go away. He watched me, looking at me as if he knew there was something deeper going on.
“I’m okay…” I said throwing the dish towel in the sink and grabbing the football from him. I smiled at him and ran out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. I could make it through all of this as long as Rex was okay…
A noise that sounds similar to a stampede of elephants trudging through the living room wakes me up. Fuck. A glance at my alarm clock; it’s not even eight A.M. yet. What the fuck is going on?
I throw on a pair of sleep pants and head out into the living room to see what all the commotion is about. The second I open the bedroom door I regret it.
“Do you realize how much shit I have dealt with? Do you know how hard it is to give a blow
job for ten minutes?” The girl that is screaming at Landon is a usual lay. She comes and goes as she pleases. Literally. I know Landon keeps it strictly platonic. He isn’t ready for a relationship, and as long as she understands and accepts that, she can come back for more.
I think her name is Laura or something. I walk out into the living room, scrubbing my hands down my face. I always thought I would be the one in this predicament.
“I kindly asked you to leave… It’s not like I’m being an asshole.” Landon is blowing her off, and by the looks of it, she isn’t taking it well. She has one red heel in her hand about ready to stab him with it.
I would be lying if I didn’t find it at least a bit funny.
“Could you guys maybe tone it down? It’s not even eight A.M., and you’re going to end up waking the whole God damn apartment complex.” I watch as her eyes turn to me. They glide over me, landing on my shirtless chest. I can tell she is interested just by the way her lips part.
“Tell your friend to be less of a dick and I wouldn’t have to wake the whole apartment complex.” Her voice is sinister as she shoots daggers at Landon. Her hair is a mousy brown color. It is going in about twenty different directions. Her shirt is half on, and her skirt is so short, I can see what I am getting before I buy it.
I scratch at the back of my head, trying to figure out a way to make myself look less like a dick.
“Just in case you haven’t noticed, you’re here at our apartment calling him a dick after you willingly slept with him. By the looks of what you’re wearing, it sure seems like you came here for one thing. Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of your ‘friendship’, but if you come here looking like that, and acting all seductive, it’s not’s going to earn you breakfast in bed. You want to be treated like a lady, act like one.”
A growl erupts from her throat, a sound I have never heard come from a woman’s throat before. In one second flat, she is in front of me, aiming the heel of a red stiletto right at my head. Reaching out, I wrap my hand around her wrist, pulling it in a downward direction. Instinctively, she releases the heel, and it clatters to the floor.
