Broken by Love (The Basin Lake Series Book 2)

by Stephanie Vercier

  She’s so enduring. It’s clear that she’s still intoxicated, and yet she’s trying to recover the dignity I suppose she thinks she’s lost in the way she straightens her posture and apologizes through her lightly slurred voice. For whatever reason, I find this endearing and again am overcome with a desire to keep her safe.

  “If you don’t want to go back in, I can take you home.” I move a step closer to her.

  She looks at me with hesitation, and I don’t blame her. Sure, I could deliver her back into the club and find her friend, Angela, but I’m guessing she’s in deep with Stephen, and I feel like what Emma needs is a soft bed and a tall glass of water. A cab seems out of the question because she’s still drunk, and I’m not sure I’d trust some guy to get her home without taking advantage. Even with streaked mascara and what is probably vomit breath, Emma’s still a beautiful girl, and the fact that she’s stumbling could give a guy without a moral compass ideas.

  “You’ll take me right home?” she asks like she really wants to believe me.

  “Yes,” I say. “And why don’t you text your friend in there to let her know? Tell her I’m Stephen’s friend, John.”

  “Yeah,” she nods and pulls her phone out of the small black purse that hangs on her shoulder.

  After she dutifully texts her friend with what I’m sure are a few typos, she allows me to take her arm and steady her as we make the walk to my SUV. This isn’t necessarily the way I’d have imagined spending my night with Emma had she given me the time of day before Madison yanked me away, but it’s something. And something is better than nothing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EMMA

  I wake up with a huge hangover. My head is heavy, feels like it could split open, and I very slowly open my eyes to the sun that’s pushing through my curtains.

  My curtains.

  I’m back home, and it takes me a moment to replay the events of last night over in my head. It’s something I do when I wake up after a drunken night, remember what I’d done and find myself regretting some of it, wishing I could have a do-over. I guess that would have come in the form of getting out of Angela’s car as soon as I’d seen Ike, knowing nothing good could come out of his presence. I’d been right. He’d pushed himself on me, and I was close to losing control over myself until John showed up.

  John.

  Jonathan.

  That’s what he told me his Mom still called him when he drove me home after I’d thrown up not once or twice, but three times in front of him. I’d nearly died of embarrassment, but he stood by, putting his hand on my back and telling me I was going to be okay, that he’d get me home if I was worried about going back into the club.

  I should have told him no. I shouldn’t have trusted a stranger like that, but there was just something about him, something that made me imagine he’d never do anything to hurt me… and he hadn’t.

  My phone rings, and I push myself up in bed, the slightest movement making my head pound. It’s already ten forty-five, and I need to be to work at noon. Angela’s name is flashing across the screen, and I figure there’s nobody better to make me wake up.

  “Hey,” I mumble.

  “You fucking left,” she hisses.

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat and sit up fully now.

  “Yeah? I had to look around that entire god damn club trying to find you. Made me look like an idiot in front of Stephen.”

  “I texted you,” I say, remembering doing just that before I’d followed John to his SUV.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t see it until later, after I’d been a good friend and tried to track your ass down.” She lets out a strangled bit of air, like she’s beyond exasperated with me.

  “Sorry,” I say, even though I’m not sure why. “I was sick, and I didn’t want to go back in.”

  “Yeah, well, just don’t do it again, okay? It totally pissed me off and messed with me and Stephen.”

  “You and Stephen?” I sigh and swing my legs over the edge of the bed.

  “I couldn’t relax because of you, so the sex sucked… I didn’t even have a single fucking orgasm.”

  I shake my head. The world has bigger problems than Angela’s ability to orgasm with a guy she just met.

  “Anyway…” she begins before I can say anything, “it’s do-over time, and you’re coming with me to Stephen and Denny’s tonight. You owe me big.”

  At that, I laugh. I don’t even think Angela really cared why I had to leave early last night—she was probably just mad because she couldn’t pawn me off on Denny.

  Typical.

  “Something funny?” she says, and I can just imagine the look of indignation she must have on her face.

  “Do you even know what Ike tried with me last night?”

  “I don’t know… what? He misses you,” she says like it’s nothing. “Did he like try to rape you or something?” Then she laughs.

  “Fuck you, Angela,” I say and end the call. She tries to call back of course, but I ignore her and drag myself into the shower.

  Mom is still sleeping by the time I’ve done my hair and makeup and slipped into a high-waist silk dress and peep-toe pumps, all black of course, which is basically my work uniform. Mom will probably be passed out for half of the day because of her excessive drinking. As for me, all I needed was that hot shower, a little extra makeup, a giant bagel and some orange juice, and I’m at least functional.

  I stop for coffee on my way to Patrice’s, the high-end handbag store I work at, getting my usual soy latte that I slowly sip as I walk the eleven blocks along quiet, late Sunday morning downtown streets. The store is just as peaceful when I step inside—it won’t open for another hour. Burk, my manager, is singing to himself in the storeroom, so I get to work tidying up the store and try to push the argument I had with Angela out of my mind. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does—I don’t like things to be unsettled.

  There are plenty of other things to focus on of course, like the fact that Ike might have forced sex on me in that alley last night had John not shown up. I cringe at my stupidity in going out there alone. I mean, usually alleys behind clubs are filled with people trying to make last minute hookups, waiting for rides, or just being sick like I was. But the alley behind Rampage was deserted, and I should have remembered that from when we’d first gone in.

  I could spend all day going over my shortcomings of course, but that could be a very long, dark road to go down, and so I think instead of something that makes me happy.

  I think of John.

  While straightening some handbags in the front window display, I feel a tinge of embarrassment when I consider he had to stop at a convenience store last night—at my request—to get me breath mints and water so I didn’t have to keep trying to cover the vomit breath I knew was escaping my mouth. It’s not really a request you want to have to make, but I remember the conversation, at least on his side, flowing a bit more freely after that.

  He’d told me his mother still called him Jonathan, but he preferred John, and his last name is Mercer, like the street in Seattle—easy enough. He’d said he was twenty-three—that I remember with great clarity because he’d mentioned graduating pre-law at UW and that he’d be starting law school soon. In my drunken haze, I thought it was crazy that he’d already gone through four years of college while I hadn’t even started, and I blurted out the question, “How old are you anyway?”

  If he’d asked me my age, I don’t remember. But if he had, I’m not sure I’d have admitted I was only nineteen.

  He might have mentioned something about his family living on Mercer Island, which would be fitting. Or maybe it was Medina or some other place you have to be rich to live in. From his clothes and his friends, I figured he had money, and while I couldn’t identify the exact model of his SUV, I could tell it was expensive. But unlike a lot of other guys who like to flash their wealth around like it somehow correlates to their penis size, John struck me as… humble.

  The less he talked about himself, the
more time there was for him to ask about me. Other than my address, he wanted to know where I went to school—I told him I was taking a break; what I’d been up to this summer—I’d been vague because the answer, besides going out and getting shit-faced to forget, was nothing; if I was really okay after that entire incident with Ike, and whether or not he could see me again. I answered yes to the first, I think, even though the thought of Ike was still unsettling, even today. As for the last question, he’d asked it outside the glass double doors of my condo building, and I can’t for the life of me remember if I’d actually verbalized a yes. I could only hope I had.

  “Hey sweet girl,” Burk says, making me jump and knock a handbag to the hardwood floor as I turn toward him. “Oooh!” he says. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you!”

  “It’s fine.” I pick the thousand-dollar bag up off the floor and set it back onto its perch.

  “Late night?” he asks while fiddling with the tag on another purse.

  “Do I look that bad?” I put a hand up to my cheek, hoping I’ll never get the dark circles Mom always seems to have under her eyes these days.

  “Oh, no honey,” he says, waving his hand. “It’s just you’ve got a little glint in your eyes, and I’m trying to imagine what sort of eye candy you might have gotten yourself wrapped up with last night.”

  I can’t help but laugh. Burk always has such an easy way about him, and since I started working here, he’s joked that he has to live vicariously through me since he’s an “old married guy” now with a husband and two pugs. But all of the supposed action I’m getting remains in his imagination because I don’t tell Burk anything about my current or past sex life—I’m honestly just too embarrassed, too ashamed.

  “Well, you can think whatever you want to,” I say, scooting past him, grabbing some spray cleaner and starting to wipe down some of the glass shelving. “Last night was boring as usual.”

  Burk sighs. “That’s really too bad. A girl who is as young and beautiful as you should be going out every night and having men fall at her feet. I’ve told you I grew up in Oklahoma, didn’t I?”

  I nod.

  “Oh, if I’d been in Seattle when I was nineteen, I would have taken full advantage of the nightlife… full advantage!”

  “Well, that’s you, and I’m just me,” I say, wondering if I should be getting annoyed with Burk wanting to upload his own fantasies into my life, but I guess I don’t because sometimes I want them to be true. In the past two months I’ve worked here, he’s already imagined me meeting my prince charming and planning a lavish engagement party, right down to the lavender dress I’ll wear, the princess cut diamond that will be on my finger, and the very useful gifts I’ll be receiving, including Mr. and Mrs. monogrammed pillowcases and an all expenses paid, pre-wedding trip to the Bahamas.

  “Let a boy dream,” he says.

  As soon as the store opens, we get busy. There are lots of tourists who don’t mind plunking down hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for a couture bag, and every single time I ring one up I can’t help but think about where that bag came from, what poor animal had to be killed for the leather and what worker in some far off, low paying country was responsible for sewing all of the pieces together. I’d mentioned it to Burk once, and he just shrugged and said that was life.

  I purposely keep from checking my phone during my break at four because I don’t want to listen to the voicemails I’m sure Angela has left, cussing me out for being a shitty friend when she’s the one who could have cared less what Ike tried to do to me last night. But without Angela, I’m pretty much friendless, and the thought of being stuck at home alone with my mom sends me into a mini panic attack. It’s times like these that I think about my old friends, the ones I had in North Seattle.

  Jennifer, the very best of them, will surely be starting college soon, probably has a serious boyfriend that doesn’t treat her like shit or push her up against alley walls. If I go further back, all the way to grade school, I think of Paige Kessel who’d been my best friend before moving away in the fourth grade after her dad died. We’d lost touch, and I was sorry for that. I think about what her life is like in that small town in Eastern Washington they moved to and how much I miss her, how much I’d love to know how the story of her life is unfolding.

  The next three hours slide by, and I imagine myself caving and calling Angela, if for no other reason than to somehow try to get back into John’s orbit. He’s Stephen’s friend, so there’s a chance. Of course there’s the whole thing about me not remembering what I told him last night about whether I wanted to see him again or not. What if I said no? I’d even scoured my phone on the off chance he’d slyly added his number in, but nope.

  And maybe none of it matters anyway because he’d been with that girl, the one who tugged him off of the dance floor. Those other girls, Meg and Court, had said her name was Madison. Denny said she and Jonathan were “on and off.” In other words, John is taken, and maybe all a girl like me would be to a gorgeous guy like him, a guy who is going to be a lawyer, who is probably going to do amazing things with his life, is a rebound.

  With fifteen minutes left in my shift, and after having just sold three bags to a couple from Canada, Angela walks in. I’m both annoyed and glad to see her.

  She walks toward me in a fairly classy, midnight blue sheath dress and ankle strap heels. Her blonde, curly hair is down and parted at the side.

  “You’ve been ignoring me,” she says matter-of-factly once she reaches the register I’m standing behind.

  “Yeah, well, you were kind of rude,” I reply, hoping I don’t cave and tell her I was in the wrong last night.

  She lets out an exasperated sigh while Burk watches from the corner of the store where he’s pricing some inventory for an upcoming sale. “I guess I was kind of a bitch,” she says. “It’s just that I’m used to people doing what I tell them, okay?”

  Wow, I think this is the first time Angela has ever actually admitted that.

  “I don’t want to do what you tell me anymore,” I answer, knowing that once I didn’t mind, but now I do. “And I don’t ever want to see Ike again.”

  She nods, and I can tell it’s painful for her to acquiesce. “I won’t be calling him again. Don’t worry. I get that he probably crossed a line.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “He really did.”

  “So… are you coming with me tonight?”

  Ah, yes, of course Angela wants something, but at least she’s asking and not telling.

  “To Stephen and Denny’s?”

  “Yes. Denny’s really nice actually, and he has it bad for you, so—”

  “Will John be there?” I cut in.

  A flash of annoyance crosses her face. “Umm… yeah, I guess. They all live together, so I don’t see why not.”

  “They live together?” Suddenly I imagine John being in the same apartment or condo or house that Angela was in last night when she had her non-orgasmic sex with Stephen. Part of me wishes I’d been there too, not for the sex part of course, but maybe in the living room, sleeping my hangover off on the couch next to John.

  “Plans for tonight ladies?” Burk asks with a giant smile. “I’ll want details tomorrow of course.”

  Angela turns to Burk, sizes him up, and looks on the verge of asking, “Who the fuck is this guy?” but thankfully she offers a faint smile.

  “I assure you it will be boring,” I say to Burk. “But you can imagine whatever you want.”

  He laughs. “Well, go on then. Don’t let me hold you up. I think you heading out a few minutes early won’t be a problem.”

  “Thanks, Burk,” I say, excited for the possibility of seeing John again, even if he’s already taken and even if nothing will come of it.

  “Yeah, thanks, Burk,” Angela adds, flippant as usual.

  We stop at the condo where I change into a more comfortable black cotton sundress and wedge heels. I throw my hair up into a high ponytail and wipe my lipstick off in favor of some red-ti
nged gloss. Mom has at least gotten dressed today, but she’s in one of her moods, drinking alone on the balcony and playing with her smart phone.

  “Do you need anything?” I ask before Angela and I leave. I still love my mom and want her to be happy, but I’d really just rather not deal with her issues.

  “I could use another bottle,” she says, holding up a nearly empty one.

  Knowing she’ll eventually get up and grab it herself, I dutifully go into the kitchen, pull a chilled bottle out of the fridge, pop the cork and bring it to her.

  “Thanks, hon,” she says, and goes back to her phone.

  The house the guys all apparently share is in Wallingford, north of downtown and Lake Union, not all that far from Rampage. It has an incredibly modern, cube-like appearance and is plopped down into an older neighborhood where it doesn’t quite belong. I don’t notice an SUV parked in the narrow driveway, but considering there’s only room for one car there, a silver BMW at the moment, I figure John could have parked somewhere down the street.

  “Hey, beautiful,” Stephen says to Angela, opening the door wearing a nice red polo and dark brown cargo shorts.

  “Hey, you,” Angela says, stepping forward and allowing him to lift her up against his body with his strong arms like they could literally have sex right in front of me.

  “Emma?” For a second, I think it might be John, but it’s Denny peeking around Stephen.

  “Sorry.” Stephen laughs, sets Angela down and moves back into the house. “Got carried away.”

  “It’s fine,” I say to Stephen, and then, “Hey, Denny.”

  After I’m in, Denny closes the door behind us. He’s dressed similarly to Stephen except his shirt is a dressy plaid button up. He’s a cute guy, not gorgeous like John, but cute, and he’s got a big grin that takes away any discomfort I might have in knowing he’s got a crush on me.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Denny says while we follow Stephen and Angela in through the hallway and toward a large kitchen and entertainment area. The inside of this place is just as new and modern as the outside.