by Joanne Rock
CHAPTER FIVE
MIA BENSON CROSSED her fingers against the worn leather bench seat of Davis Reed’s vintage Ford pickup truck as he slowed down on a gravel back road and pulled off to one side of a hayfield on the way home from their first date.
Davis—not Dave, as he made clear to everyone—was a band geek. A tall, skinny drummer who wore a plumed hat at halftime during the football games at Crestwood High where they both went to school. Surely a band geek with enough guts to strap on that loopy hat every week was not stopping at an obvious hook-up spot to do anything more than...kiss?
She’d had a decent time on this first date so far. She wasn’t falling for Davis Reed or anything. Obviously. But she also hadn’t spent the last three hours plotting how to get away from him, which had happened enough times in her dating career that most girls would have just given it up as an exercise in futility. But what else was there to do in a small town on a Sunday night? Sit at home and watch her dying father’s jaundiced skin turn a deeper shade of yellow?
Mia was grateful to the old guy for bailing her out of the foster system and everything, but she wasn’t his caregiver. Eww. Bad enough she had to think about what would happen to her once Pete Yancy croaked. But she would not complicate her messed-up life even more by getting too attached to the father who hadn’t wanted her for the first thirteen years of her life.
“Not much of a view, is it?” She hid her crossed fingers under a filched makeup bag of her mother’s that Mia had used for a purse ever since leaving the Drunken House of Horrors that was her mother’s outwardly nice life in the Nashville suburbs.
She’d take the jaundiced, clueless dad—who at least pretended to care—over the cold and unfeeling mother who didn’t want to hear that her last boyfriend had cornered Mia in the laundry room demanding things that weren’t fatherly in the least.
“I like the view just fine.” Davis turned toward her with a shy half smile as he switched off the ignition and killed the headlights.
His attempt at flirting, she guessed. And since he didn’t seem to be undressing her with his eyes, she let the comment slide. If he was warming up for a kiss—that was fine. She could deal.
Anything more than that and Davis Reed was going to find out what she was made of.
“Seriously.” She debated unfastening her seat belt. Better mobility if she needed to ward him off. But the act of unfastening anything around a teenage boy was like a flashing neon sign screaming “come and get it.”
“My dad’s night nurse leaves at eleven. I need to get home.”
Davis wore khakis and a white button-down. Preppy leather boat shoes. With his dark blond crew cut and freckles, he had a friendly face. He got good grades, too. All of which had played into her decision to go out with him tonight to escape the new machines installed at her father’s bedside last week. Machines that buzzed and beeped in a way that seemed to count down the remaining seconds of a life she needed to last for at least another nineteen months.
When she would turn eighteen.
“For sure.” Davis made a point of checking his watch in the dark, the little blue light popping on inside the digital readout when he turned his wrist.
Must be nice to have cool toys.
She listened to the engine tick as it cooled down, alert to any movement on his side of the pickup. She’d been lost in her own thoughts on the way home from the theater, not really paying attention to what direction he was driving because this was Davis and not some testosterone-fueled horndog from the wrestling team who thought they could take whatever they wanted after winning back-to-back state championships.
Now she wondered if she’d been an idiot once again.
She didn’t mind walking home in theory. But she wasn’t even sure which way “home” was. Besides, she’d heard there had been a string of break-ins around Heartache lately. Kids in her school whispered that teenagers might be behind it.
She didn’t want to run into people like that in the dark.
“Where are we?” she asked, hating the nervous jitter in her voice. It was important to remain in control in situations like this. Remind the guy you were a force to be reckoned with and not some twit who had been staring out the window like this could just be a normal date.
“Almost home.” He waved in a general direction. “The main road is just up there. We’re, like, ten minutes from your place.” He slid over toward her, his knee brushing hers. “I figured it’d be a good spot to say good-night.”
Mia hated this moment. Hated the vulnerability of it. Hated suspecting any guy she ever dated of turning into a creep at the slightest physical contact.
It didn’t help that she had the genetic disadvantage of sporting the breasts of a stripper by the time she was thirteen. As her mother so eloquently put it with a wink, “Them tatas turn men into animals, honey.”
Unfortunately, her mama’s moment of wisdom hadn’t been accompanied by any advice on how to tame the male beast. Draw a bitchy line in the sand now? Or hold out and see what happened? If all Davis Reed did was kiss her good-night, Mia would call this a good date.
“I had fun.” She was still trapped by her seat belt. But she wasn’t unbuckling now. She gave him a warm smile but she finally uncrossed her fingers in case she needed her hands. “Thank you, Davis.”
“You’re so pretty, Mia.” He said it reverently, as if it was something to be proud of.
Why didn’t guys ever say, “You blew me away with the way you defended your position on the Crimean War in debate today”? Or, “Mia, you make the best chocolate chip cookies ever”?
Which was true. Her former foster sister, Nicole, had told her so, and little kids didn’t lie the way the rest of the world did.
“Pretty is as pretty does,” she drawled, one of her mother’s favorite sayings to be sure Mia never thought too much of herself.
She hated having her mother’s voice in her head right now. The mother who never lifted a finger to help Mia when she’d really needed her. But she was too busy calculating her next move to think up a more original answer to a supremely unoriginal remark.
Poor Davis.
He went in for a kiss with all the finesse of a fullback, more or less ramming her into the seat with the force of his lips. But that might just be youthful enthusiasm. Davis Reed had no game.
Carefully she pressed the button to free her seat belt, knowing the time had come to ensure she had full mobility if she needed it. Except that was when things went horribly wrong. Because when she tried to grapple with the buckle, her fingers brushed his thigh. And possibly...something more.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed against her mouth, grabbing her hand in his and pressing it to a handful of the something more in his pants.
Turning her blood to ice.
“Let go,” she told him clearly. Loudly. She tensed her hand into a claw and she would have scratched him if he’d been naked, but through the khakis, he probably didn’t even notice.
“I heard you liked this.” Oblivious to her words, Davis all but fell on her, his chest hitting hers while he kept her hand on his crotch. “I was afraid to believe it, but oh, man—”
She kneed him. Hard.
Watched as his expression turned from ecstatic to pained. And then, furious.
But she was already slipping out from under him, her heartbeat thundering so loud she couldn’t hear much else.
“I said, let go.” She levered open the door handle poking into her spine. “I said it clearly. And loudly.”
She enunciated the words carefully because it was hard to talk when you were scared. She’d learned that way too young. But she wasn’t thirteen anymore. Shoving open the door to the truck, she slid out, half falling before she awkwardly got her feet underneath her. Even through the rubber soles of her tennis shoes, she could feel the crunch of dead, sti
ff brush. The branches of a sapling clawed at her hoodie.
Ready to run, she spared one last glance at Davis Reed. Illuminated by the dome light, he was hunched over—writhing, really—in obvious pain. Curled in a ball on the front seat, he clutched his groin.
Crap.
She was torn between the voice in her head that said, Don’t be a sucker—suckers end up raped. And the quieter one that said, What if I overreacted?
Considering she was on her feet and ready to flee while he appeared incapacitated, Mia decided she wouldn’t be a total sucker to at least make sure he was going to live through his injury.
“Davis?” Her legs trembled beneath her.
“You...grabbed...me.” He took shallow breaths between each word as he turned accusing eyes her way, his cheek mushed against the leather truck seat. “I was only going in for a kiss. It was you who took things to DEFCON 2.”
“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to get to my seat belt buckle so I could unfasten it. I couldn’t feel where it was.” She shivered as a cold gust blew over her. She was going to freeze with only a hoodie on if she had to walk home. “And besides, I told you to let me go.”
Her heart still pounded fiercely, but some of the fear had leaked away. And not just because Davis looked like he couldn’t make a grab for her if he tried. They were talking. And he could very well be telling the truth.
“At the time—” he paused to clear his throat, his voice still tight with pain and his words careful “—the combination of disbelief and euphoria were making the blood pound in my ears too hard for me to hear anything.”
Mia covered her mouth to smother a sound that was half laugh and half cry of regret. He must have heard, though, because his eyes narrowed.
“It’s not funny.”
“No.” She shook her head. Just a misunderstanding that would embarrass them both forever. “I know. But I was really scared.”
“I’ll say.” Shoving upright on the seat, he scrubbed a hand over his pale face. His skin looked clammy. “I’ll be lucky if I can still have kids after that.”
She bit her lip. “Sorry. I’ve had...bad experiences with guys.”
She tried to gauge his expression as he stared back at her, but what she saw was wariness. Not anger.
But then he heaved out a long breath and swiped a hand across his forehead.
“You think you can drive a stick?” He nodded toward the driver’s seat. “I could use a few more minutes to recover, but I know you need to get home.”
“You want me to drive?” She hopped from foot to foot to warm up.
“I think we’ll both be glad for whatever gets us home fastest.” He fell back against the passenger seat and stared out the front windshield, not even looking at her.
“Can I ask you a question first?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “When things started to get ugly a minute ago, you said, ‘I heard you liked this.’ What the hell was that supposed to mean?”
“Mia. You’re a smart, smart girl. I thought that before I asked you out. And I know now it’s true after getting to know you more tonight.” He slanted a glance her way, peering down at her. His freckles stood out all the more against his too-pale skin. “So I’m going to guess you know exactly what I meant because you have to be aware of your reputation at school, right? You’re a favorite topic of discussion among the male population of Crestwood.”
His words hit her like a pile of books falling off the top shelf of her closet. She fumed even though a small part of her was glad he thought she was smart.
“And the consensus is that I like grabbing guys’ crotches?”
He didn’t even pick his head up where it lolled back against the headrest, but she could see him roll his eyes.
“Not in so many words. But—whether it’s true or not—guys want to believe the hottest girl in school is also...attainable. I never paid much attention to it, honestly. But when I thought you grabbed me—like, well, like you wanted me—libido took over. So sue me.” He gave a bark of laughter. “On second thought, don’t. You already had your revenge. Now can you drive a stick, or not?”
Cold and eager to put this night behind her, Mia nodded. Padding around to the driver’s side of the truck, she tugged open the door and dropped into the seat behind the wheel. The keys were still in the ignition.
“I don’t know the way,” she reminded him, slamming the door behind her while she fired the engine to life.
“Back out to the gravel road, and left when you hit the main county route.” He tugged on his seat belt, his legs sprawled to take up the whole passenger side. She noticed he’d taken the to-go cup of soda from the movie theater and wedged it between his thighs.
The ice must help.
“Can I ask another question?” She nearly stalled the truck shifting it into gear, but got it under way, the headlights spilling out over empty hayfields in either direction. “What made you think I was smart before tonight?”
She’d heard the whole “hottest girl in school” bit before and didn’t ever care to hear it again. Those words were like a teenage ode to the high, firm 34DDs on a frame too small to carry them. They didn’t have anything to do with the girl inside.
But smart? She held her breath while he looked out the passenger window as if thinking it over.
“Okay. You’ll laugh at me, but what the hell do I care at this point?” He turned toward her, resituating the soda cup as he shuffled his long legs. “I don’t know if you remember that day you let loose on Mr. Shrader about the Ottomans and the Russians when he was trying to pick apart your position. But...damn.”
The admiration in his voice was unmistakable. And still, Mia could not believe her ears.
“The Crimean War debate?” They’d all been assigned sides in social studies and she’d gone off-topic to make the point that it was one of the dumbest wars in history—and that was saying something.
“Yeah. I know. Total geekitude to be dialed into Russian history at 8 a.m. But that’s how I knew you were smart. There’s plenty of girls pulling down As. But not many who go toe-to-toe with Shrader in front of the whole class.” Davis pointed left. “The turn is up here. See the stop sign?”
Mia nodded.
Band geek or not, Davis Reed had just made a serious chink in the armor around her heart. It might have been a great first date—probably the only good one ever—if she hadn’t kneed him in the crotch.
By the time she steered the truck into her father’s driveway, she couldn’t wait to put the whole thing behind her. She was an idiot to go out on dates, especially now that she had definitive proof that the boys in her school all thought she was some kind of nymphomaniac.
After an awkward goodbye with Davis, she trudged across the cold grass in front of Pete Yancy’s two-bedroom shotgun house with the sagging porch, wondering if it was too late to call her closest friend Ellie. It was a sad statement on Mia’s pathetic life that the person she felt closest to in the world was the woman answering hotline calls from total losers.
But as Mia tiptoed past the living room where her father’s bed now stood surrounded by monitors and equipment the home health care worker needed, she didn’t care if it made her a complete failure of a human that she needed to hear the voice of a woman she’d never met before. She had exactly no one else in her life who cared about her except for maybe her foster sister, whom Mia wasn’t even allowed to see anymore.
Pausing on the worn linoleum floor just outside the kitchen, she listened to the soft beep, beep of the monitors around Pete’s bed. Had he even heard her come in?
Lately, every time she walked past his bed she held her breath, fearing he was already dead. But the machines would make different noises, right?
Somewhat reassured, she darted into the tiny bedroom at the back of the house and squeezed her cell phone tighter, hoping El
lie answered. With the clock ticking on Mia’s time with Pete, she needed a plan for what would happen when those machines did stop beeping. Her mom didn’t want to be bothered getting clean to regain custody. And returning to the foster system wasn’t an option.
It was thanks to that first foster home that she was so terrified of getting hurt again she ended up practically castrating perfectly nice boys. For a so-called smart girl, Mia had no freaking idea where to turn next.
* * *
GABRIELLA SIFTED THROUGH the contents of the goody bag from the spa party as she sat on the motel bed, waiting for Mia to call her back. Hair washed, face clean, a cup of apple cinnamon tea at her elbow after a short wrestling match with the coffeepot to obtain hot water only. But not even looking at the cheery bath products and the mini six-pack of specialty cupcakes wrapped in pink gingham ribbon could take away the dark cloud of her visit with Clayton.
She didn’t know much about his history with his father—he’d never been the kind to confide much about himself—but she remembered he resented the man. Knowing that, why wouldn’t he have made it a priority to check on his half sister, a vulnerable sixteen-year-old who’d been through hell in the last two years? Granted, he hadn’t known about her until recently. But as soon as he learned she existed, why wouldn’t he contact her?
Sipping her tea while she read the flier about the homemade, almond-scented bath bomb, Gabriella knew not all of her anxiety was related to Mia and Clay. Some of it owed to the fact that she’d be sitting in a courtroom tomorrow, seeing the man who had assaulted her ten years ago. Her therapist had warned her there would be emotional setbacks this week, no matter how far she’d come in putting that terrible summer behind her. Between her father going to jail and the attack, she’d been pushed to her emotional breaking point. She’d overdosed, wishing for nothing more than to leave the pain and confusion of it all behind.
Years later she felt stronger as she helped others deal with painful lives, and her support group online had helped a lot of people. But she would need a different kind of strength tomorrow in that courtroom.
