The Start of Us: Book 1 in the No Regrets series

by Blakely, Lauren

“I’m here anytime you need me,” she says softly. Sweetly. Kindly. “If you don’t want to talk in front of the group, you can talk to me. I want you to know that.”

  No one has ever offered to help me before. I don’t know what to say. “I have to go,” I say, then I take off.

  Before I reach the top of the steps, I feel a buzzing in my back pocket. The possibility that it could be Cam winds me up, like I’m a slot machine and someone is about to hit the jackpot and all my bells and buzzers are whirring. I grab my phone, and my fingers feel slippery as I unlock the screen. Please let it be him.

  Please, please, please give me my fix.

  It’s not Cam though. It’s Trey. The other guy I want. The guy I can’t have.

  I’m at the coffee shop around the corner. Guy’s meeting ended early. Come find me.

  Part of me doesn’t want to go. Another part knows I’ll do what he asked—go find him. Because at least someone replied. At least someone wants me.

  Cam. Trey. Trey. Cam. I feel like I’m seesawing back and forth, being pushed in one direction, then pulled in another by unseen hands. When I reach the coffee shop, I spot Trey through the window. He gives me a curt wave—a guy wave—but his eyes light up.

  I push on the door and quickly join him at the wooden counter.

  “How was the girls-only meeting? Tell me all the tawdry tales,” he says with narrowed eyes.

  “Ha. It sucked. How’s that?”

  He nods several times. “Know what you mean.”

  He gestures to his friend Jordan behind the counter. “Can we get this woman a triple espresso?”

  “Ten-four, man,” Jordan says, then turns the handle on the espresso machine. It hisses and whirs.

  “How’d you know I’d want an espresso instead of a latte?”

  “Because when you get stressed, you need more caffeine,” Trey says, as if the answer is obvious. But it melts me the tiniest bit that he remembers these details. That he keys in on my stress without worrying about me or making it seem like a big deal. He just knows. He knows me. He’s the only person I’ve let know me. I wonder if we’d have become friends if we met under other circumstances. If we first met in group therapy, would I have pushed him away? Or was meeting him at his shop, having him ink my shoulder, and then kissing and making out all night long the reason why I kept no secrets from him?

  “That’s cute,” I say softly. “That you remember that about me.”

  He raises an eyebrow and tilts his head. “Did you think I turned stupid in the last hour? We’re friends, right? I should know these things.”

  Okay, so that’s all. He remembers because we’re friends, not because we might be more.

  I heave a sigh. I’m so out of sorts right now from Danielle’s story ripping up my heart, feeling all too familiar and all too foreign at once. I want to punch her mom and I want to run away from Danielle at the same time. I want to spill all my secrets and lies to Joanne now that she’s invited me to lay them at her feet, but I want to shove all my secrets down and never let them out again too.

  On top of that, I’m amped up from waiting for Cam to reply. Maybe I don’t want him to anymore. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t have a clue. Maybe I am still so fucked up. And maybe if Trey were more than a friend, I could get a grip. But it’s as if there’s something ticking inside me, harder, faster, and it hurts, like a sharp metal object in my chest struggling to break free.

  Jordan finishes the espresso and places it in front of me. “For the lady,” he says with a sweet smile. Jordan is adorable. He has dark-blond hair and blue eyes, and the four of us—Trey, Kristen, Jordan, and I—are making plans to see the band Over The Edge on tour, after that text I sent Trey the other night. Jordan and Kristen would make a cute couple. Healthy, normal, not six degrees of fucked up. I reach into my purse for money, and Trey gently brushes my hand away.

  “I got it,” he says in a low voice, and gives Jordan the money.

  “Thanks,” Jordan says, and tends to another customer.

  “You didn’t have to,” I say as I take a sip of espresso.

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “What’s with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t seem like yourself.” He lays his hand on mine, and like that, the tension inside of me starts to dissolve. His hand is safe and warm. When he touches me, I feel like I belong to something true.

  I take a breath, meet his eyes, and do the thing I didn’t do in the meeting. Share. “I don’t know. It was just a weird meeting. This woman talked, and she said all this shit about how her mom wasn’t nice to her, and it bugged me.”

  Trey furrows his eyebrows at me, but says nothing.

  “What?” I ask pointedly.

  “Did it bug you because your mom wasn’t always nice to you?”

  I tense up again. “Why do you have to say that?”

  “Because it’s the truth,” he says, not backing down.

  “She was nice to me,” I mutter.

  “Harley,” he says, and the tone of his voice is both caring and also correcting. As if he knows I’ve made an error. “She wasn’t. She made everything she did seem okay.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I want to shrug him off, swat him away for saying crap about my mom. But I don’t want to lose his touch right now. I barely know this kind of contact, and I’m not ready to dismiss it. I want to explore it, so I inch—hell, maybe I even millimeter—closer to his fingertips, which brush my earlobe, sending warmth sparking through me. I feel that strange but wondrous thing I only feel with him as he touches me. A flurry of wishes and hopes race through me—him doing this to me as more than friends. Him doing this as the guy who wants to comfort me, who knows me, who can say the right things.

  “She wasn’t always good to you, and I don’t like it when people aren’t good to you,” he says as he lets go of the hair he’d run his fingers through, the strands falling against my clingy red shirt.

  His words hurt, but they don’t sear. They hurt in the way the truth sometimes can. “Maybe she was too nice. Maybe that’s what you meant,” I manage to say.

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess what that lady said at the meeting hit close to home,” I admit.

  “I can imagine.”

  I drink more of my espresso, finishing it quickly, then set the small cup on the counter.

  I still feel edgy, antsy. I tap my fingers against the counter, beating out notes of my frustration.

  “Hey. Let’s get out of here. Get away from people, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Trey grabs his backpack and makes some kind of see you later gesture to Jordan, then places a palm on my hip and guides me to the back of the coffee shop, past the bathroom and into a tiny office. He shuts the door behind us and unlocks a green screen door that opens into the smallest garden courtyard I’ve ever seen. Lined with red brick and planted flowers, this tiny garden area is wedged next to a vacant apartment building slated to be razed. There’s a stained-glass window in the empty structure, and it makes such a beautiful piece of randomly found art.

  A pink stained-glass window in an abandoned building.

  I look at Trey. “What is this little place?”

  “Jordan said they’re going to open it up soon. Make it, like, a small outdoor area for the coffee shop. There’s room for a table or two.”

  “Wow,” I say, and turn in a circle. On the other side, we are fenced in by tall wooden posts. Ivy climbs down the wood. “I feel as if I’ve made my great escape.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can we stay all night?” I joke.

  “Maybe,” he says softly, and his voice sounds different. I don’t know what it is, but he seems vulnerable, like he’s about to say something.

  “Maybe?”

  He shrugs, drops his backpack to the ground, and leans against the wall. The night air is warm, and I can hear the sounds of traffic not far from us—horns honking, tires squealing. But then it fades from my
ears as Trey lifts a hand, and it feels as if he might be reaching for me. I don’t know how to read this moment, and how it’s shifted to one of possibility. Because I don’t know what happens when a girl likes a boy, and a boy likes a girl, or if that’s even what’s going on here. All my finely-tuned radar is off, skittering and pointing in every direction, because everything is different when I’m not being paid for pleasure.

  The world slows down as he touches my arm. The second he makes contact, his hands both electric and unbelievably soft and gentle on my skin, I know he senses that something has changed. Maybe he could tell I was at the end of my rope, was veering toward Cam. I close my eyes for the briefest of moments, delighting in how my arm is tingling. The sensations race through my body, and I want to be touched by him. I don’t have to feign interest, or fake a turned-on look.

  But just then, an ominous sound squawks from my back pocket. Darth Vader’s theme music.

  “Fuck.” The moment isn’t just broken. It’s shattered into a million shards that cut me and leave me bleeding.

  I grab my phone and open the email from Miranda.

  There’s no subject line—she never bothers with subject lines. I’m not worthy of a subject line. I have to open the email to see what she wants. It’s a small act, but it sends a powerful message: she holds all the cards.

  I click on the email. She doesn’t write my name.

  It just says: Package coming Friday after 3:30 by courier, specific time unknown, return per usual.

  Which is bullshit. She knows the time. She knows it down to a fraction of a second, I’m sure. She probably has an advanced computer simulation program on how to blackmail most effectively, and relies on the perfect combination of algorithms and data, past behavior and future predictions, to determine exactly when, where, why, and how to send me her next set of instructions. And she’s not going to tell me the time, never has, never will. Her whole game is to keep me on pins and needles waiting for the package while simultaneously preventing my mom from intercepting the package. She often sends them to my mom’s house, so she can torture me, make me scamper across the alligator pit.

  I write back to Miranda, equally curt: Message received.

  I shut down my email and close my eyes. I feel Trey press his hand on top of mine.

  I open my eyes and look at him again. I am twisted inside out. I could punch this brick wall now, split my knuckles open, and slam into it over and over again. I push my hands roughly through my hair and groan loudly in frustration. “I fucking hate her.”

  “Me too,” he whispers. “I hate her for you.”

  “I hate how she controls my life,” I say between gritted teeth.

  I breathe out hard, wishing I could release all this coiled tension from my body. Trey is still leaning against the wall, and his gorgeous arms are on display, the art swirling down in lines, shapes, and patterns that mesmerize me. His arms are strong, sculpted and muscular. I want them around me.

  Fuck everything else in the world right now.

  I step toward him and cup his cheeks. “I’m tired of waiting for you,” I say, shedding all my skin. He knows all my secrets and lies. He can know my truth. “I’m so tired of it,” I say softly, holding his gaze as I trail my fingers along his jawline, from his earlobe across his scar to his chin, watching the expressions in his eyes shift from surprise to desire to desperate want. I run my index finger across his top lip, and he closes his eyes briefly, his chest rising and falling, his breath catching.

  He opens his eyes again, watching me. I touch his bottom lip, and he nips my finger, then flashes a quick grin that fades as he whispers, “I’m tired too.”

  That’s it. That’s all. I can’t wait. I don’t want to. I need this contact with him. I need this moment. I need to know what it’s like to have this kind of connection again.

  I kiss him.

  Slow. Soft. But full of need. Full of hope. Full of my wish for this, us, him and me, to become more than just friends. I want him so badly. I want to return to our night, and I want him to take away the pain again. I want his touch to remind me that there is good in the world, that two people can be close and care about each other, and it doesn’t have to be a game or someone using the other.

  That there can be something real and true.

  He groans as I trace his lips with my tongue. His lips part, and he lets me lead the kiss, lets me taste his mouth and his tongue. Then in seconds, the kiss changes. He spins me around until my back is against the brick wall, and he threads his hands into my hair, running his fingers through the thick strands and kissing me deeply, his tongue sliding against mine, his lips capturing mine. It’s a fiery kiss, full of months of pent-up longing, born out of a night when everything seemed so far out of reach that we had to grab the visceral, the physical, to tie us back to earth. To make us forget all the ways our lives were spinning out of control. Then and now. He kisses harder, insistent, as if he can’t get enough of me, as if he needs to taste me, drown in this kiss with me.

  I lose myself too. I let go of the meeting, of the SOS to Cam, of Danielle’s words, of my mom’s insatiable need to hook me up, of the stories Miranda makes me write, of my past. I shed them all. They are vapor, they are nothing. I am new again.

  I am no longer that person.

  Layla is gone, as I am at once lost and found in a kiss like this. A kiss that has nothing to do with power or games or control. A kiss that simply has to be. His hands are in my hair, then roaming down my back, then grappling at my hips. And all the while, we are in this together. We both want and need this—there is no uneven distribution of desire or money or want. His lips consume me with desperation, and soon he’s traveling down my neck and kissing the hollow of my throat, and I gasp quietly.

  “Oh,” I say, but for me that’s everything, because I don’t make noise, I don’t vocalize, I don’t let on when I’m turned on.

  “Fuck, Harley,” he says, and grabs my ass and pulls me against him so I can feel how much he wants this too. He licks his way up my neck, and I melt inside as his lips brush my earlobe. As if he’s about to whisper something. Maybe tell me how much he wants to taste and touch me.

  But then his hands are on my shoulders, and he’s no longer holding me close. He’s holding me back. I’m standing there panting, lost in some sort of crazed moment of lust, and he’s suddenly all cool and calm as he says, “But I can’t. I can’t go there. And I have to get away right now.”

  He grabs his backpack and leaves, the screen door swinging behind him with several creaks.

  He’s gone.

  And I’m alone in this ridiculously romantic courtyard in the middle of New York. Hot and bothered and utterly left behind. Like an idiot.

  My phone buzzes. I grab it in milliseconds, hoping it’s Trey.

  But it’s Cam.

  Missing things? Missing me? That can be fixed in an instant, sweetheart. Tomorrow night. Bliss Bar. 7 p.m. Be there.

  19

  Cam

  Ah.

  The note I’ve been waiting for.

  Hoping for.

  Hell, if I were a praying man, I’d say hallelujah, because one just came true.

  Her note—missing things—it’s like a goddamn triumph. It’s a rock anthem. It’s all I want.

  Because I’d never pressure my girl.

  No way.

  But bring her back?

  Bring her back in a whole new way?

  Oh yeah.

  As I stare at the note I received in the middle of my poker game, I grin.

  This feels like my lucky night.

  One of my buddies lifts his chin, gives me a your turn look. “You gonna stare at your phone all night or make a move?”

  I shoot him a stare. Stay quiet for a moment. Check out my cards one more time. “I’m feeling lucky,” I say, then I raise him.

  And I reply to Harley, letting her know I’ll see her tomorrow night.

  I sit back in my chair, pleased as a lion, when I win the hand. I draw
in all the chips, and that, that seems fitting.

  20

  Trey

  I slam the door to my apartment, locking it and securing the chain.

  As if I can sequester myself. As if I can shut myself off from her and stay inside my home, far, far away from Harley. Like I’m sealed up and safe again.

  Because the thing is this…

  She has to go to SLAA.

  She was forced to go.

  She’s being blackmailed.

  I chose to go. No one made me. No one forced me. I guess you could say Mr. Thompson did when he found me making out with his wife in the elevator of my parents’ apartment building. I run my finger across the scar on my cheek, and the pain echoes even months later, as I head to my cramped kitchen. I don’t think I realized just how strong he was. Or how mad he’d be, but when his fist connected with my face, I felt his college ring rattle through every bone in my face.

  They make the rings damn solid at Yale University.

  Yeah, it hurt.

  When you’ve been pummeled by a man who’s six-five, two-hundred-and-forty pounds, and wears one of those big-ass class rings, I guess that’s how you manage a self-imposed monkhood for a year. The ring sliced my cheek apart—I could actually see several millimeters of the meat under the skin right after it happened. My mom sewed me up that evening without a word. The scar would have been much worse if I didn’t have that sort of access to one of the premier plastic surgeons in Manhattan. She wasn’t happy with me, but what could she do? She could have cut me off from college, but she wants me in school more than anything. Besides, in my family, we deal with the practical. We shut the door to rooms that aren’t used, we stitch up cuts, we take painkillers to numb each day, and we don’t talk about things.

  I don’t talk about my brothers. Because they don’t talk about my brothers. So why would they want to talk about why I was spending so much time with the married women in the swank Upper East Side building where they live? But I knew I had a problem, and the cut on my face was my rock bottom. I didn’t need someone else to find the bottom of addiction for me. I found it, and I decided to get my shit together after I spent the latter part of my teenage years screwing married women in my building.