“Nope,” Uly said.
He slid his hand into mine and we walked to the house together.
As soon as we went into the house, he moved to the right and took me with him.
We were in the pitch black of darkness and I clung to him to make sure I didn’t walk into a wall or something else. I swore I saw things moving around me but that was just my eyes messing with my head. And the drinks…
“Why was Ash there?” I asked Uly.
He stopped walking. “I can’t speak for his actions. I don’t speak for anyone’s actions but my own.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said. “You’re hanging out with Them again. Because of me. And you’re telling me that Ash is at some party with Lila and you’re just there too?”
Uly turned to face me and put his hands to my waist. He pushed me against the wall.
My mind flashed to the images of Ash and Lila doing the same thing…
I felt the warmth of Uly’s cigarette stained breath on my face. “You cried, doll. Why did you cry tonight?”
“None of your business, Uly.”
“I’m making it my business.”
“I’ll knee you in the balls right now, Uly.”
“My legs are wide open, doll. Follow my lead? Make this night one we both won’t forget.”
I could smell him. But I couldn’t see him.
I just looked up and pretended I could see him.
“Is that what this is then?” I asked. “A competition for you, Hil, and Ash? To see who could convince me to fuck them first? What’s the prize then? It’s not me. So if I make the decision, what do I get? Some money? So I can leave here and start over? I asked Jo for that and she told me no.”
“Is that what you really want, Belle?” Uly asked. His hands were suddenly off my body.
“What?”
“You want to become that? You want to get money for yourself? Is that what it all comes down to?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to not have it, Uly. You have everything you could ever want.”
“Not everything, doll,” he said.
I pushed away from the wall to find Uly.
I moved through the darkness with my hands out.
As I bumped into something, I gasped and the lights turned on.
My right hand was spread wide as a vase rested against it.
“I wouldn’t drop that,” Uly said. “It’s worth about twenty grand.”
“Holy shit,” I said, my heart racing.
I carefully lifted the vase back into its place.
There were four doors all in a curve.
“This is the guest quarters,” Uly said. “Since you want to be a guest and nothing more. Unless I write a check, right? Or do you prefer cash, doll?”
“Hey, fuck you,” I said. “You don’t get to tell me how to think or feel. I don’t think…”
Uly went into a room.
I chased after him.
I lost my breath.
It was like a log cabin in the room.
From the floors to the ceiling, everything constructed in wood. The smell was so good too. Like fresh wood mixed with pine or something.
“It’s big enough I hope,” Uly said.
“Big enough?” I asked.
The room had a giant bed against an even bigger window.
There was a fireplace in the room.
With a loveseat facing it.
A huge TV above the fireplace.
Uly pointed out the closet door and the bathroom door.
Then he started to walk toward the door.
Like he was going to leave the room.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re leaving?”
“Why not?”
“You brought me here for this? To just throw me into a room like this?”
“I think I know all I need to for the night,” he said.
“You don’t like it, huh? You don’t like being the rich boy, Uly. Or the smart guy. Everyone just assumes shit about you I bet. And whatever this is with Miss Whitaker, I bet it eats at you. So what is it? Why does she live here? What does she have to do with your father? Why did your father give you this house? Huh?”
Uly shut the door.
He turned off the lights.
Darkness swallowed the room and me.
I heard a noise and tried to follow it with my eyes.
Then I saw the small flicker of a flame.
That flame grew bigger.
In the fireplace.
Uly built a fire.
I watched as he stood up and turned toward me. Without hesitation, he grabbed the bottom of his shirt and took it off.
I sucked in a breath.
His shirt took his hat off and both fell to the floor.
All that remained on the top half of his body were the necklaces.
The way the firelight danced across his body almost made me jealous. I wanted my hands to do the same. What the fire showed, I wanted to touch. That completely unfair tease of the V that dug into his jeans was nothing compared to the sight of the rest of his body.
And he was moving toward me.
The necklaces bouncing off the perfectly cut line between his chest muscles.
I started to back up, but I wasn’t sure why.
What was the worst thing that would happen? I didn’t want to back off from Uly. He was the one always there for me. Always there to save me.
The back of my legs hit the bed and I stopped moving.
He was right in front of me a second later.
He grabbed my hands and put them to his ribs.
Ribs, muscles, warm skin…
My toes started to quiver.
“How much is this worth, doll?” Uly asked. “Or better yet… this…”
Uly grabbed my hips and picked me up. I cried out as he threw me across the bed. I hit and bounced, my body ignited faster than the fire in the fireplace.
Uly was right there, knees on the bed, moving toward me again.
My elbows held me up, my hands wrapped tight around the sheets.
Uly moved over me and down to kiss me.
His lips smashed against mine with a force that had nothing to do with romance.
His right hand moved under my shirt without hesitation. My stomach fluttered as his long fingers crept up my skin…
“How much for that?” Uly whispered.
“Fuck off,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“But that’s what you said. So you did mean it.”
“I’m drunk.”
“I don’t care. That’s when you’re the most honest, doll.”
“No it’s not. I’m hurt. Confused. I feel lost.”
“You feel lost right now?” Uly asked.
I felt the way he applied pressure from his hips against my body.
I felt… him… it… whatever you wanted to call it…
Pressing through his jeans against my inner thigh.
Uly put his mouth to mine again.
I slid my elbows forward and my fingertips touched his skin again. On his back. Flirting with more muscle.
Uly broke the kiss again and put his forehead to mine.
Time was suspended.
“How much do you need?” he whispered.
“I told you, I’m drunk,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I blurted it out.”
“You don’t want to stay, Belle?”
“You don’t know what I want,” I said.
“I know exactly what you want,” Uly said. “Trust me, doll.”
Uly started to move away from me.
He wanted to leave me there, feeling tortured by the desires we both wanted.
I dug my fingers into the muscles of his back.
I looked down at the necklaces that were now resting against my shirt.
The guitar pick.
The ring.
“Grayson did it to me and I did nothing about it,” I whisp
ered.
“Tell me what he did.”
“You all already know. Somehow.”
“Say it anyway, Belle.”
“He used me. And I let him. I knew he was using me. I didn’t really care either. He killed time for me. The attention he gave me was real. And I knew what he was after. So when the time came, oh well.”
My eyes moved to Uly’s eyes.
They were burning. He looked ready to fight someone.
He’s jealous. Now I’m going to win the night over him…
“So, yeah, we did it, Uly. We were at a party and we both wanted each other. I can tell you everything we did…”
Uly put his lips to mine and kissed me again.
Then in a quick move, he was off me, sitting on the edge of the bed.
I hurried to sit up and then got to my knees.
I stared at his strong back. My mouth was dry. Kissing Uly made me feel drunker.
“Then he did what he did to my locker,” I said. “Which really wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean, what did it matter? I wasn’t all that innocent anyway. But I wanted everyone to think I was, Uly. And he…” I sucked in a breath. “I left. I went home and I blinked and Jo was there. After the police and ambulance. And then I was in her house. It’s been a little bit more than crazy. But tonight? Seeing Ash like that. After what he’s said to me. After kissing me…”
Uly stood up and walked to the fireplace.
I’m not going to stop, Uly. Feel what I feel…
“I walked away without saying anything to Grayson,” I said. “And now I had to do it again. With Ash. So what’s next? Huh? You? Hil?”
Uly looked at me. “I’ll fix all of that for you, doll. Tonight, you needed to get out of there.”
“That was my decision to make.”
“No. It was mine.”
“So you could get me alone here?” I asked. “To do what?”
Uly curled his lip. “You haven’t named your price.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “I didn’t…”
Instead of talking, I climbed off the bed.
Uly wanted to play another game?
Fine.
I unbuttoned my jeans and slowly pushed them down.
I wobbled like a drunk moron as I fought to get out of my shoes, socks, and jeans all at the same time. I ended up just sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling defeated again. I had one leg out.
“Fuck, Belle…”
I lifted my gaze and Uly was blurry as he walked toward me again.
I blinked away more tears as he dropped to one knee.
When he touched my legs, I shivered.
He stripped off my jeans and it wasn’t in the way my mind played out many times already.
He pushed my clothes across the floor and reached for the bottom of my shirt. I closed my eyes and felt him take the shirt off me.
I sat on the edge of the bed in my bra and panties.
Uly then stood up and moved to the top of the bed. He pulled the covers down and pointed.
“Now,” he said to me.
I kicked back on the bed and climbed under the covers.
Uly then joined me.
We faced each other, under the covers.
I reached for him with my left hand and Uly grabbed my hand.
“No, doll,” he whispered. “Turn around.”
My face turned bright red.
I listened to Uly, rolling to my other side.
He then put his body to mine.
His chest against my back.
His right arm wrapped around my body and he pulled me close.
“I won’t stay the night, Belle,” Uly said. “But close your eyes. You can’t figure it all out in one night.”
I swallowed hard. “I thought you would use what Ash did for your own benefit.”
“If I wanted to, doll, I’d be inside you right now.”
I blushed harder. “You think that?”
“You want to find out?”
Yes.
“Uly…”
He kissed the back of my shoulder.
I shut my eyes and screamed on the inside.
I grabbed his hand and took a deep breath.
“Just listen to me without a fucking fight for once,” he whispered. “Close your eyes and sleep it off.”
I shut my eyes.
My head was spinning.
My heart was racing.
My body was engulfed in flames.
But with Uly holding me against him, I felt safe.
I knew it was probably all a giant lie.
The mystery of Uly and the mystery of Them was just getting started.
In the quiet of the room I heard my phone vibrating. It was in the pocket of my jeans. My jeans were on the floor.
And I was not leaving the bed.
Even if it was fake… and a lie…
Uly felt really, really fucking good.
seven
I had a drunk dream about Them.
Back at my old place.
Standing in the hallway, the red V staring back at me.
Uly walked by and showed me his right fist. Bloody knuckles.
The V turned into a U.
Then came Hil.
Smoking a cigarette.
His right knuckles were busted up too.
And when he walked by the locker, the U turned into an H.
Finally there was Ash.
His knuckles were bleeding too.
Except he turned and faced the locker. He used his right pointer finger to do something to the red H.
When he walked away, the H was gone.
And it wasn’t an A either.
It read… Lila.
My eyes instantly popped open and I growled.
I made fists and swung them around the bed.
I was alone in the bed.
The big, comfortable bed in the room that looked like a log cabin.
I sat up and looked to the fireplace.
There was a very small fire burning.
And there was no sign of Uly anywhere.
I pushed the covers off my body and gasped when I saw myself.
Bra. Panties. Nothing else.
Ohgod… the bra and panties don’t even match.
It wasn’t like I had planned on being half naked in bed with one of Them, you know?
I took a deep breath and stood from the bed.
My head was no longer spinning, but it hurt.
I stumbled around the bed and the first thing I saw in the glowing light of the fireplace was Uly’s shirt.
His long sleeve shirt like he always wore.
I tiptoed to it like he was in bed sleeping.
I picked it up off the floor, balled it up and stuck it against my nose.
As I took a deep breath, I sighed.
It smelled like Uly.
Duh.
I pulled the shirt away from my nose.
I looked around the room and saw that the door was open.
That gave me an idea.
I quickly put Uly’s shirt on. It came down past my knees. The sleeves could have been rolled up fifty times and they still would be too long.
I didn’t care.
It was comfy and it smelled like Uly.
I walked around the room to find my clothes.
When I checked my phone, there were twenty texts from Danica. Telling me that Lizzy threw up in her car. That Lizzy threw up again back at Danica’s. That Lizzy was sleeping in the bathtub. That she was worried about me.
It was a couple hours later so I just sent a thumbs up.
I dropped my phone and hurried to the bedroom door.
I crept out and walked through the super dark hallway, my hands out to make sure I didn’t knock over any other twenty thousand dollar vases.
“It’s almost one in the morning, Lake,” Uly’s voice said.
“Christ, Ulysses, will you calm down?”
I poked my head from the hallway and saw Uly and Miss Whitaker standing near the s
tairs.
They couldn’t see me as long as I didn’t move.
Uly was in a fresh shirt.
Another long sleeve shirt.
This one was super tight against his body.
He was smoking a cigarette.
“Will you take that thing outside?” Miss Whitaker asked.
“You smoke too.”
“Not in the house.”
Uly walked to the front door and opened it. “There. I’ll meet you halfway.”
“Ulysses, please calm down,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t text or call. Brendan was a nice guy. We had a good time. We went from dinner to this little nightclub. There was a jazz band playing. I lost track of time.”
“Yeah, right,” Uly said. “What kind of name is Brendan, huh?”
“I’m home and safe,” Miss Whitaker said. “Stop worrying.”
I was confused. And really intrigued.
Uly started to pace like an angry father catching his daughter sneaking home in the middle of the night. Yet Miss Whitaker was much older than we were.
She finally put a hand to Uly’s shoulder. “Ulysses. I appreciate you always worrying about me. Caring about me like you do.”
“You should have had him come to the door to pick you up,” Uly said. “So I could get a feel for the guy.”
“And how do I explain that one? Huh? That my former boss’s son is the one questioning guys I date? I’m not sixteen, Ulysses. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“I didn’t say you were,” Uly snapped. “I just don’t trust guys. Okay? These assholes will say and do anything…”
My mouth fell open.
Really?
Uly was worried about some man flirting with Miss Whitaker to get her into bed when he… and Them… with me…
Uly turned his head and I swore he looked right at me.
I jumped back and my heart leapt up into my throat.
“Do you want copies of the receipts?” Miss Whitaker asked. “Huh? Want me to get the security footage too? We stood outside the nightclub, each had a cigarette, and guess what? He kissed me. And then when he realized he shouldn’t drive, he called for a ride. And in the backseat on the way here-”
“Fucking hell, Lake, just stop that talk,” Uly said. “Shit. I don’t need to hear that stuff. If you tell me about that then I’ll never be able to do that again myself. Ever.
“Hey, you want to get involved, that’s on you.”
“I don’t want to get involved. I have to get involved.”
“There was one time, Ulysses,” Miss Whitaker said. “One time after your father…”
They both went silent.
NOT SO Beautiful: a bay falls high novel Page 7
