I backed off and took my hands from her, feeling the soft warmth of her body quickly turn into a crazy rage of desire.
I blinked a few times, my eyes and brain realizing what my heart had been trying to say all night.
She was getting to me. She was crossing barriers that I always kept at a safe distance.
“Trev…”
“Serafina…”
She shook her head.
I gritted my teeth. “You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”
“No,” she said. “I swear to you. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“What about…”
“No. No loopholes, Trev. No fiancée. No husband. No commitment. I just have a…”
She looked down. She put her fingertips to her lips and her cheeks burned red.
She liked the kiss. She wanted more. So did I.
I glanced back at the letters.
Did those have something to do with this?
“Trev, I can’t explain this,” she said. “I have to go.”
“Wait a second, Sera,” I said. I touched her arm. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Hey, wait,” I said, growling as she rushed toward the door. “Did… is someone hurting you?”
Sera had her hand on the doorknob. “Why do you care, Trev?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You just… there’s something about you, sweetheart. That’s all I can say. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you to hand me letters to read. I want to hear your voice. I want to feel your emotion. And I want to get so fucking mad at you for reading that letter of mine. But I can’t. And it’s pissing me off.”
“Good. You should be pissed off, Trev. Be pissed off. Hate me. Never want to talk to me again.”
She opened the door.
“Hey,” I said. “You left your letters here.”
“I know.”
“So that means you’re going to need to see me again.”
“I know,” she said again.
I shook my head. “Whatever game you’re trying to play here, it’s dangerous.”
“I’m not playing…”
I reached back into my pocket and took out the letter I wrote to her.
“What’s that?” Sera asked.
I put it in her hand. “My response.”
I shut the door and put my hand against it. I looked down and groaned.
I either needed to forget her for good, or just fall for her.
Chapter 14
Serafina
did you get my text? do you need anything from me?
I bit my nail as stared at my phone. I hadn’t heard from Max in a little while. I shouldn’t have cared as much as I did. For as much as I wanted all of that to end, it was hard to let go. The habit was hard to break. The comfort was hard to risk. Maybe it was stupid to say it like that, but it was the truth. Max was the only person who really knew a deeper part of me. It had become the basis of our affair and I had become the perfect woman for him, and him the perfect guy for me.
Until I met Trev.
Freaking Trev.
My mind still flashed with the first image of him. Lifting that hoodie up and his shirt going with it, showing off a chiseled cut body and that tattoo across his chest. The fact that he’d lost his stepbrother, and people actually had the nerve to blame him for it.
It was maddening to me. It was so maddening… yet I liked it. He understood how tragic and twisted life could get, and I wanted to be close to that. If I was looking for fire to keep warm… Max was a match and Trev was an inferno.
Max never replied to my message. Which left me looking to my right, to the folded piece of paper on my bed.
I reached for it, my fingertips just touching it, when my bedroom door blasted open.
“There you are,” Hailey said, stumbling in.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
She surveyed the room. The cell phone on one side of me. The piece of paper on the other.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered.
“What?”
“You broke up with someone… or someone broke up with you…”
“No. Not even close. It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You said you had plans tonight. It’s not even nine and you’re home, sitting here like that. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said.
Hailey got closer to me. She let out a little gasp. “Your lips.”
“My lips?”
“They look like they were kissed.”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“No, I am,” she said. “You were…” She smiled.
“What?”
“You look like someone went to town kissing you,” she said. “Like a really hot kiss. I’m talking… sex kissing. Dirty kissing. The kind where you just forget yourself and will do anything to keep that kiss going…”
I swallowed hard, feeling the heat rushing to my cheeks.
Sounds about right, Hailey. You can’t imagine who was kissing me and what it made me feel.
“So, what happened?” Hailey asked.
“You see where I am,” I said. “I’m home. Alone. Just trying to sort some stuff out.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “Nothing. I have stuff to work on anyway.”
“Nerd,” she said. “I’m going out.”
“You’d better not be driving. You’re half drunk.”
“Chris is driving.”
“Who the hell is Chris?” I asked.
“I’m the hell is Chris,” a guy’s voice said.
His head poked into my room a second later.
“Cute,” Hailey said.
“Are you drunk?” I asked him.
“Me? Hell no. I won’t do that shit. I have too much to lose. I’m on a scholarship, babe. No way I’ll fuck that up. Not like Heath.”
“Poor Heath,” Hailey said.
“He was driving,” I said. “After drinking.”
Am I really even going to think about attempting to say that he deserved what happened? Ohmygod I’m a terrible person…
“But his brother didn’t help,” Chris said. “Loser.”
“His brother?” I asked.
“Yeah. Trev or Tyler or something. Some fucking burn out that couldn’t even get into college. He was with him that night. He was supposed to be the driver. But instead, he got wasted and made Heath drive.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Totally,” Chris said. “I bet he was jealous because Heath was good at everything. Shit. I bet it’s like murder or something.”
“No way,” I said and stood from the bed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Whoa, Sera,” Hailey said.
“No,” I said. “You have no clue what you’re saying. You’re just making shit up. And when you do that, it hurts someone. It creates rumors…”
I realized that they were both staring at me with wide eyes.
“Just go,” I said.
“Okay,” Hailey said. “You sure you’re okay here?”
“I’m fine,” I whispered.
“It was nice to meet you,” Chris said from the doorway.
I gave a fake wave and Hailey shut the door when she left.
I shut my eyes.
Did I really just defend Trev when I knew nothing…?
Yet I had a chance to figure things out. I could have stayed at his place. I purposely made plans to go over there. But the second I saw him, I felt that burning tension between us. Something was going to explode, and it did. And I didn’t exactly want it to stop. But I didn’t want him in my twisted mess of a life.
I looked at my phone again.
No text from Max.
Which meant it was time to read Trev’s letter.
* * *
Serafina,
I don’t like the whole fate talk. I think that’s a cheap excuse to hold
tight to in case things work or don’t work. You know? Let’s say you meet someone and fall in love and then it goes to hell. You can blame fate. Fate brought you together and because it was fate, the breakup of things could be blamed on it too. Same when things go right. You give credit to fate as a security blanket in case it goes wrong eventually.
I believe in owning your own shit and figuring it out. Now, that coming from me is sort of a laugh because of how much I’ve let the world down. Believe it or not, I used to play baseball. And I was actually pretty good at it. I mean, when you consider things - consider fate - between myself and Heath, we should have had a happy family. Jock football player and jock baseball player. Heath lost his mother to cancer early in his life and my father… well… he just wasn’t a father. So it should have been amazing when my mother met Heath’s father.
It wasn’t.
It never was.
The world was made to revolve around Heath.
Now, you’d think I would have gotten jealous of it. But that wasn’t me. I don’t do jealousy. I was happy for everyone and I really wanted to see Heath go pro and chase his dreams down.
But now you’re asking… what happened to me?
I wish I could tell you that I blew out my knee, or my shoulder, or something. But honestly, I just decided that I didn’t want it anymore. I enjoyed playing baseball for the fun of it. Life took over and I just walked away. I did it out of anger. I did it out of spite. And I really pissed a lot of people off.
The funny part though, Sera?
Not a single person asked me about me. It was always about the baseball game. The team. The coaches. The potential. The fate of it all. That’s what everyone talks to me about. But not a single person turned that side off and just talked to me.
I started writing my own letters then. Letters to someone. That’s what you found. One of those letters. I’ll tell you who those letters were for. I’m not afraid, Sera. Of my secrets. Of my past. Of my present. And I think you said it best, Sera. Everything is wrong with us. That’s why I can’t stop thinking about you. That’s why I want to know more about you. That’s why I’m writing this letter.
I’ll catch you later, sweetheart
Trev
I folded up the note and put it on the bed next to me right where it was before.
I took a shaky breath and felt my head spinning in circles as my heart raced.
The problem with Trev was that he wasn’t going to be comfort… he was going to be like a wall. And I was going to hit that wall as fast as his stepbrother was driving the night of that car accident.
But what was I supposed to do?
Just keep hiding?
Finish my degree and… finish my affair with Max?
There wasn’t a bone in my body that believed that anything serious would ever come of me and Max together. I’d lied to myself over and over and said that fate would take care of things.
“Fate,” I whispered.
Something Trev didn’t believe in.
That made me smile a little.
I wanted to know how messed up he really was. How wrong he was. So I could tell him all about me And we could live in a messy world of letters and lust.
Letters and lust?
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
My phone beeped.
I looked down.
hey. home. you should be here.
I put my left hand onto the phone. I put my right hand onto the letter.
I was torn in half, but shouldn’t have been. Yet the crazy part was that Trev would be the only one to understand this.
I decided to read Trev’s letter one more time… then reply to Max that I would be over.
Chapter 15
Serafina
I grabbed the early afternoon shift which meant that at seven exactly, I was done for the day. I gave the bar one last walk to make sure the handful of people there were good on their drinks. Two guys offered me their bed and their hand in marriage, both of which I politely declined.
I counted my tips in the back and did a few rounding calculations to make sure I could cover rent and utilities.
As I walked out of the back of the restaurant, my phone started to ring.
I knew it wasn’t Max because he never called. It was only texts with him.
I smiled when I looked at the screen.
“What do you want?” I said, taking the call.
“Just wanted to check on your car,” Trev said.
I laughed. “Funny. I really don’t think my car needs that much attention.”
“Fine. It was a lame excuse to talk to you.”
“Definitely lame. I wonder what you’d do to see me.”
He sighed. “Sit on the hood of your car and wait for your shift to be over.”
My eyes went wide and I turned to the right.
Sure enough, there was Trev, sitting on the hood of my car.
The employees had to park in the back corner and Trev parked his truck next to mine, facing the opposite way. And he was sitting on the hood of my car.
“You’re insane,” I said and hung up on him.
When I got closer to him, he slid off the hood and stood there, holding something in his hand.
It was all the letters I’d given to him.
The letters I wrote to my best friend, but never gave to her.
“Did you read them?”
“No”
“Why?”
“I told you, sweetheart, I’m not reading them,” he said. “They’re yours. Your privacy. Not mine.”
“I shared them with you.”
“I want to hear you say it. Whatever these mean.”
Trev held the letters up and shook them.
I felt my heart ache and swell at the same time.
“I hate you, Trev,” I said.
“Why? Because I challenge you?”
“No,” I said.
I snatched the letters out of his hand and walked to the passenger door. I opened the door and threw the letters onto the seat. I slammed the door and turned to find Trev standing inches away from me.
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
“What? Why?”
“It’s early. I’m hungry. Maybe we can hang out and talk.”
“Talk? The last time we tried to hang out you ended up kissing me.”
“I know. Want to know something about that?”
“Sure.”
Trev leaned in closer. “I don’t give a shit that we ended up kissing. I’d do the same thing again.”
“All I hear are words,” I said, perhaps starting to learn how to flirt.
“Dangerous,” Trev whispered.
He kissed me. Right there at my car. Pressing me up against it. His hard body against mine. His hands touching my hips, just like before. The firm grip he had, his thumbs applying more pressure, sending warm butterflies flying through my entire body. My knees gave way just a little as we kept kissing.
Everything I knew started to slip…
Then I felt my phone vibrate.
I broke the kiss as I swallowed a groan.
“Right,” he said. “I did say that we should hang out. No more kissing then.”
My lips ached for more. My body ached for everything else.
“Trev… you don’t get it.”
“I know I don’t get it. But make me get it. What are you so afraid of?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Right.”
Trev inched away as I reached for my phone.
what time do you get done?
I slipped the phone into my pocket again.
“Look, I need a shower,” I said.
“Is that an invitation? I’ve got all the time in the world for that.”
“Shut up, Trev,” I said. “No. It wasn’t an invitation.”
“So you’re all tough now? Because I kissed you again.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” I said.
I started to slip away and he pulled at me again.
“Hey. I just hope that whatever it all is, you’re okay. That nothing bad is happening to you. That nothing is hurting you. You deserve better than that, Sera.”
“You don’t know that, Trev. You’re just assuming.”
“Maybe I am. So maybe if I get to know you better, I’ll be able to make a better decision.”
“Is this you being nice or just sweet talking your way into my shower?”
Trev grinned. “Maybe it’s both.”
“Of course it is. And you say you’re not like other guys.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh? Everything revolves around you getting into my pants.”
Trev leaned in so closely that I could taste his breath. “Trust me, sweetheart, I’m not trying to get into your pants. If that’s what I wanted, I’d already be there. And getting into your pants…” He shook his head. “I hate that saying. There’s plenty of other trouble to get into with you.”
I wanted to kiss him again. Right there. Me kissing him.
My phone vibrated again.
I moved away.
I needed air. I felt like I was in a sauna and about to pass out. All because of being near Trev. He was scary… in a way that was maybe good for me.
“I take it this is the part where you say you have to go?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“And this is the part where I ask you to come over again. Maybe actually hang out for a little while. Forget the letters and all that crap.”
I looked at him. “You really didn’t read one of those letters?”
“Not one.”
“You should have.”
“I’ll hear it from you.”
“I’ll stop over after I shower. Okay?”
Trev back away and nodded. “You know where to find me, Sera.”
I stood there and watched Trev walk to his truck and climb inside. He drove away and I looked through the passenger window at the letters. I had never dared to share those letters with anyone. They were as secret as I could get. I tried to share them with Trev and he didn’t want to read them. Because he wanted me to speak to him. Tell him about what happened to my best friend. But that wasn’t my only secret though. My phone in my pocket, the text messages from Max. The truth of how far I had let things go in my life. I had plenty of excuses for what I was doing and why, but I didn’t want to live off excuses. Or at least give Trev excuses. He would call me right out. He would stand up to me. He would challenge me. He would probably make me cry… but not hurt me. Which was a weird thing.
EVERYTHING WRONG WITH US_a novel by: Page 9
