by Frankie Rose
You could see the pure fury in Chloe’s eyes. She wanted to see how afraid and small Avery felt. She wanted to know how permanently and irrevocably she had damaged her, and Avery had given her nothing. That was the day Chloe was found guilty of her crimes and Avery had walked out of the courthouse with her head held high.
I’m certain that this new appeal is a mind game on Chloe’s part. She’s been rotting in hell for the past nine months and no one is paying any attention to her anymore. She wants to be a part of the circus again. She wants the cameras back in her face, and more questions thrown at her. But most importantly, she wants to see Avery again. And this time she wants her to be broken.
I find my conversation with Cole in my messages and I write him a text, explaining what’s just happened.
Cole: Fuck man, that bitch is crazy!
Me: Clinically insane for sure.
Cole: So you HAVE to go? What does that mean for Fallen Saints? I know you don’t wanna talk about it, man. But, y’know…
Me: It means that you should tell Marika she can play with us for the concert. If the appeal runs long, I won’t be back in time for it.
Cole: Fuck. And then what?
Me: Then she plays lead and you sing.
Cole: And if you CAN get back in time?
Me: Then she plays lead and I sing. You guys get your Saints experience, and then you think long and hard about whether you want me to stick around afterward. I haven’t changed my mind. I’m either a guitarist for you guys, or I’m a cop back home in New York. It’s your call.
Cole: Not even a choice, man. If Marika wants to blackmail us, we’ll give her what she wants for one night. After that, she’s gone. There’s only one Lucas Reid.
My face feels odd. Takes me a second to figure out why: because I’m smiling. I haven’t smiled in so long. I mean, yes, I’ve plastered on a grimace that resembles something similar when I’ve been around other people, if only to get them to stop asking if I’m okay, but right now I’m alone. I’m not faking for anyone. I’m just actually, very weirdly happy. Because, yes, going back to Breakwater and dealing with this shit all over again is going to blow, but on the other hand…I get to see Avery. It will be under terrible circumstances, and it’s going to be fucking harder than hell to face her, but I get to see my girl again.
TWENTY-THREE
AVERY
I’ve never been one to act out of rage. I’ve never been one to lose my temper at all, even when I was being kicked and punched and harassed at every turn all throughout high school, I never once got so pissed off that I retaliated. It’s just not who I am. Or it wasn’t, anyway. It appears I just hadn’t been pushed quite far enough. When I see Luke on MTV with some smoking hot woman riding him like a motherfucking theme park attraction, I’m suddenly a different person altogether. I’m fury personified. I’m so angry I can taste metal in my mouth. I’m so angry, I—
The woman opens those pouty, bruised lips of hers and grinds her barely covered tits up against Luke’s bare chest, and then her pointy little tongue darts out and she fucking licks him, up his neck, toward his ear, and it’s like the lights are simply switched off. Everything goes black. Or red. Or white. I don’t really know. All I know is that I’m moving, moving as fast as I can, and then the sound of D.M.F’s song is no longer playing, and there’s an alarm of some sort going off somewhere, and there’s also a seven-inch-wide hole in my brand new television. The screen’s gone blank, and there are sparks and plumes of smoke pouring out of the hole.
“Shit!”
I hurriedly unplug the television, dodging more white-hot sparks, and then I’m pacing back and forth in front of the burnt out Panasonic, wondering what else I should do. Is it going to burst into flames? The smoke detector in the ceiling certainly seems to think so. Crap, crap, crap!
I grab a towel from the kitchen and fan it at the shouty alarm until it shuts the hell up, and then I peer into the hole in the middle of the TV’s screen and see the heavy marble paperweight I must have picked up and thrown. It’s tangled in amongst broken glass and a nest of wires, completely undamaged. No way I’m sticking my hand in there to fish it out.
Instead, I slump to the ground and start crying because Luke and that smoldering sex kitten keep flashing into my brain, looking like they were about to start procreating, and it feels like my soul just got sucked out of me and I’m never going to see it again.
This really isn’t fair. That’s a petulant, whiny thing to think, but when other couples break up, they get lost in their lives. If Luke and I were a normal couple in New York City, I would probably never have to ever see him again. He would vanish into a sea of millions and millions of people and maybe in six or seven years we’d accidentally bump into each other outside an art gallery or at a concert or something, but by then we’d both have moved on and it would be okay. We might even be pleased to run into each other, only remembering the awesome, happy times we shared together a long, long time ago.
But no.
Things are still just about as raw as they can be and Lucas Reid is on my television screen with another woman trying to eat his face. I can’t fucking cope with this anymore. If that makes me weak and pathetic, then so be it. Trying to be strong is one thing, but trying to be strong, seeing stuff like that and then knowing I have to see him in the flesh in a couple of weeks?
No.
Just no.
I pick up my cell phone and call Noah. It’s Saturday, it’s early, and I know he doesn’t have Neve this weekend, so there’s every chance he won’t even be awake yet. He picks up on the third ring, though, sounding out of breath and husky.
“Hey, love. What’s up?”
“I was just about to make some breakfast. I was wondering if you wanted to come over maybe?”
“Ooh, wow. An invite to the new palace? I’d love to but I think there’s a barricade preventing all Irishmen into your neighborhood. Too ritzy for our blood, see.”
“Shut up,” I tell him, laughing softly. “Do you want to come over or not?”
“Sure. I’ll need to grab a quick shower, though. I’m just out for a run.”
“Don’t bother.”
“You won’t be saying that when I show up on your doorstep all covered in sweat, Patterson.”
“I won’t mind,” I say quietly.
I can hear New York traffic blaring in the background, as Noah doesn’t say anything for a little while. I can hear him take a deep breath, almost say something, and then exhale again, clearly deciding not to voice whatever was on the tip of his tongue. He clears his throat. “Well, it’s your funeral, A rúnsearc. I can be over in ten, but don’t you be askin’ me to leave again because I stink.” He laughs, and I can hear a note of uncertainty in it.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“What?”
“What you just called me. Sounds like you said uh-roon-sark or something.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He sounds awkward, slightly tense now. “Uh-roon-shark. Slip of the tongue, sorry. It’s a term of endearment. Means…mmm….it means beloved, I suppose. Sorry, I...” He blows out, hard, and I can imagine him standing on a street corner, looking up at the sky, phone pressed to his ear, not really knowing what to say next.
“Stop worrying, Noah. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
I sit and chew my nails for the next seven minutes. I don’t know how the fuck going through with this plan will make me feel any better, but at this point I’m willing to give it a shot. Anything to not feel so crushed every time I try and breathe. Anything to not feel like closing my eyes and drifting back into oblivion every morning when I wake up. Morgan told me the first time she did coke she’d had a huge fight with her mom. Kind of understandable, since her mother is a massive control freak and by all accounts not a particularly nice person, but still. She was sixteen and she went out to a house party at one of her friend’s places. The girl’s parents were out of town, and she and Morgan invited a group of college guys o
ver to party with them. They were already tipsy by the time the guys arrived, and soon Morgan was inhaling something off the back of one of the guy’s hands and then she was sucking his cock, and everything was a blur, and it was terrible and awesome at the same time.
After that night she wasn’t a virgin anymore, but she was addicted to narcotics. She told me that if she hadn’t had that fight with her mom, she probably wouldn’t have touched drugs. Ever. That something so stupid and inane as an argument with her mom over neglecting to bring her gym clothes home to be washed could lead to something that would adversely affect her for the rest of her life is insane to contemplate.
Am I overreacting here? Should I stay the hell away from Noah? Sleeping with him isn’t as dire as taking drugs, but it’s an action that will definitely have its own consequences all the same.
The television makes a loud cracking sound and a huge, jagged fracture splinters what remains of the screen, scaring the crap out me so badly that I almost leap out of my skin. “Fuck!” There’s no one with me to hear me swearing like a sailor, though. Not yet, anyway.
This is make or break time. Should I call Noah and tell him to go take that shower after all? Or do I jump in the shower myself and make sure I’m clean by the time he gets here? I hardly have any fingernails left by the time I make my decision.
In the bathroom, the slate tiles are cold under my bare feet but the water is hot. It feels like I’m flaying at least two layers of skin from my back as I let the stream cascade down my back, and I let my mind go blank. I don’t think about Luke. I don’t think about Noah. I think about the mechanics of washing my body and my hair, and then of drying myself and scrubbing at my head with a towel until my hair is mostly dry. I don’t bother with make up. I dab a tiny bit of blush onto my cheeks and apply some mascara, and then I can hear the buzzer growling angrily in my lounge and I’m still naked as I run through the apartment to go let Noah in. I’m on the seventh floor but this place isn’t like Morgan’s building—run down and old, with no functioning elevator. The elevator in the place rises so fast it feels like your eardrums are going to burst. I have barely enough time to throw on a pair of shorts and clean t-shirt before Noah is knocking on my front door.
If I hesitate, if I pause for even one second to think about this, I won’t be answering his knock, and so I don’t. I head straight from my room to the entrance way and I open the door, and there he is, leaning against the door jamb, his head entirely shaved, t-shirt dark with sweat, chest hitching up and down probably a little too fast, his eyes shining brightly.
He holds something out to me—a coffee cup, and a small brown paper bag, which must have something greasy and very naughty inside since it’s gone waxy and translucent. “Happy Hanukah,” he says.
I take the coffee and the bag from him, smiling ever so slightly. I feel nervous, which is ridiculous. “It’s August, you dork.”
Noah shrugs, moving into the apartment as I shift aside to let him by. “So it is. Happy elevenses, then.”
“I thought I was going to make you breakfast?”
“Yeah, well…when we spoke on the phone…” He turns to face me, his eyes traveling down my body, and it’s then that I realize I didn’t put a bra on before the very thin t-shirt I’m wearing. My nipples are peaked and hard, either from anticipation or anxiety, I can’t decide. Noah’s eyes linger over my chest before moving swiftly back up to meet my eyes. “When we spoke, you didn’t sound like you were in the breakfast making kind of mood. You sounded like you were stressed and about to flip your shit.”
“I did?” That certainly wasn’t what I was going for—I was hoping for seductive and sexy but it appears I missed my mark.
Noah nods.
I look down at the floor. “You shaved your head,” I say quietly.
“I did.” He steps forward and hesitates a second, and then he wraps his arms around me and gently pulls me to him. “Tell me,” he says.
“Nothing to tell,” I mumble into his sweaty shirt.
“Then why does your television have a gigantic hole in the middle of it?”
I sigh, but I don’t cry. I reach up and wrap my arms around him, the way his are wrapped around me, and we just stand like that for a minute. It feels…natural. Nice. Comforting. Noah kisses me on top of the head, and I screw my eyes shut and just stand there, letting him hold me, holding him back, until I slowly, gradually feel the pieces of me coming back together again.
“You want to eat, love?” Noah whispers.
I nod, because the smell of the coffee and the pastries he’s brought with him have worked their magic on me. I’m absolutely starving. Noah lets me go and we head for the kitchen, where we sit at the counter on stools, tear open the paper bags, and begin slowly, quietly eating the butter-rich croissants and Danishes in front of us. Noah swivels from side to side, knocking his knees against mine, grinning at me in that boyish, cheeky way of his.
“You know…I’m pretty good at figuring out when I’m being hit up for a booty call, right?” he says, flashing me his teeth.
I laugh. “I can imagine.”
“But...” he picks up his coffee and takes a drink. Puts the takeaway cup down. Begins drumming his fingertips on the countertop. “Right now,” he says. “I’m kinda struggling.”
“How so?” I stop him from twisting side to side, trapping one of his legs in between mine. There can be no second-guessing my intentions now, surely? I really don’t want to have to say the words. I just want him to kiss me. Him kissing me might make the image of Luke kissing that other girl flee my mind, if only for ten seconds, and that would be a welcome reprieve. Noah looks down at our interlocked legs and his fingers cease their drumming. Slowly, his eyes travel up my body, hovering over my bare breasts underneath my t-shirt once more, before finally meeting my gaze. His lips are parted, his chest lifting and falling too fast, the same way it was when I opened the door to him, and the way he looks at me make my skin feel too, too hot.
“You don’t want this,” he says slowly. “You know you don’t.”
“I do.” My hand shakes when I reach out to place it on his thigh, though. Noah remains still, bottom lip caught between his teeth, eyes fixed on me, nostrils flared.
“I can’t, Avery,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t even be here right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew what you wanted when you called, and I knew how hard it was going to be to behave myself.”
“Then don’t behave yourself. Misbehave.” I slide forward on my stool so that his knee, the one between my legs, is resting against my pussy. An inch further and I’ll be straddling him. Noah makes a pained groaning sound at the back of his throat. He raises both hands, balling them into fists, clearly fighting with himself—he wants to touch me, but he’s doing his damnedest to stop himself.
It’s admirable that he’s trying to refrain, but that’s not what I need from him right now. I need him to be bad. I need him to steal my breath from me and fuck me until I can’t remember my own name. I take hold of him by his right wrist, and then I place his hand on my ribcage, just below my breast. The heat of the contact sends a violent shiver through me, down to my very core. Noah’s eyes are wide, stunned looking; they grow even more so as I guide his hand again, this time up, over the swell of my breast so he can feel the heavy fullness of me in his palm. Noah lets his head fall back, screwing his eyes shut.
“Jesus, love. Please. You’re killing me,” he whispers.
“I don’t want to kill you. I want to fuck you,” I whisper back, and that seems to be enough for him. One second he’s at war with himself, doing his best to keep his cool, and the next he’s grabbing hold of me by my thighs, pulling me roughly toward him so that I’m in his lap, straddling him on the stool, and his hand is back on my chest, both hands cupping both breasts this time, and he’s pinching and rolling my nipples between his fingers as he tilts his head back, waiting for me to kiss him.
When our lips meet, my blood is thumpi
ng angrily around my body, rushing me to go faster, demand more from him, but inside my head I’m screaming.
Stop.
Don’t let him ruin this for you.
Be in the moment with Noah.
Enjoy this. Own it.
These are the thoughts I repeat to myself over and over again like a mantra as I lose myself in the gorgeous Irishman I’m kissing. Noah and I have made out before. This is nothing new. It feels different this time, though. I’ve thought it so many times since we started hanging out again, but he’s not the same guy he was back in November. I trust him now, I really do. He’s different, and so this experience feels different. Deeper. More intimate somehow.
My body responds to him, my hips pushing forward, rocking into his lap, and I suddenly feel how hard he is, his erection digging into our bodies between us, and I can’t help myself. I moan, and Noah’s hands move fast, moving to my sides, over my hips, his fingertips digging into my ass as he pushes into me too, increasing the pressure.
“Oh, god, Avery. Oh Fuck,” he hisses. I think he’s about to start tearing my clothes off, but instead he lifts me up and stands, and then he’s placing me back down on the ground and he’s backing away. “God, I—I can’t,” he pants.
Confusion floods me. It takes me a long, drawn out, pained moment to realize what he’s actually saying. Folding my arms around myself, trying to make myself smaller, I scrunch my eyes shut, trying to shut off the burn that usually signifies tears are on their way. I don’t want to cry. Crying would make this so much more humiliating.
“Avery, god, I’m sorry.” Noah moves toward me—I can feel the warmth of him close—but I can’t open my eyes to look at him. It’s physically impossible.
“You don’t want me,” I whisper.
“Ahh, goddamn it. Of course I do.”
“Obviously. That’s why you’re untangling yourself from me and backing up as fast you possibly can.”
“Avery?”
