by L. A. Casey
Who knew Darcy had a six-pack . . . and obliques?
Darcy looked down at his body then back up to me. “Did you just say something about me obliques?”
Did I say that out loud?
“No,” I said sheepishly. “I didn’t even notice you had one.”
I felt Darcy’s smirk as I spoke the white lie, and it irked me. But what got on my nerves even more at that very moment was both that I’d been caught and that I had looked in the first place.
“I don’t know why you’re smirking, but knock it off.”
Darcy adjusted himself on the couch so he was now turned to face me. “Nah, let’s talk about you liking me incredibly ripped body.”
Oh, here we go.
“Let’s not,” I said, then snickered. “I wouldn’t say you’re ripped either.”
“I thought you didn’t check me body out?” Darcy questioned.
“I didn’t.”
“Then how do you know if I’m ripped or not?” Darcy asked, sporting a shit-eating grin.
Well . . . crap.
“Shut up, Darcy,” I muttered.
Darcy cackled. “Not a snowball’s chance in Hell, Neala Girl. I don’t get the opportunity to tease you over liking me body every day, so I’m going to enjoy this.”
I scowled. “You’re a real moron, you know that?”
I looked at Darcy and became infuriated when I noticed he was nodding.
“I hate when you do that,” I hissed.
Darcy grinned. “Do what?”
“Agree with me when I’m trying to insult you.”
He snickered. “Not an insult if it’s true, but yeah, I mostly agree, because you get this look on your face like you’re going to bite me or something.”
I snorted. “And you think that’s funny? Poking the lioness when she’s angry?”
Darcy winked. “I’m sure if you came at me I could handle you.”
Oh, really?
“In the last week I’ve come at you twice, and I recall I’ve done well both times.”
“Yeah, but both times my back was turned, so that doesn’t count,” he said, keeping direct eye contact with me.
He was enticing me to come at him now that we were facing each other, and I could tell he was trying to make me uncomfortable, so I decided to flip the situation on him.
I batted my eyelashes. “Darcy, are you flirting with me?”
He blinked, then swallowed and shook his head, indicating he wasn’t.
I leaned in closer. “Sounds to me like you are . . . Do you want me to come at you now while we’re facing one another? It might be a bit dangerous, though; you have so little clothing on, after all . . . What if I scratch you? The thin fabric on those trousers of yours won’t protect you.”
Darcy’s jaw dropped open, and I couldn’t contain the belly-rumbling laugh that escaped my mouth.
“Gotcha.”
Darcy scowled. “Don’t do that; I really thought you were about to try something with me.”
I cackled. “Darcy, you’re the last man on Earth I would ever have sex with.”
That wasn’t a complete lie.
I’d have sex with Darcy if his mouth was sewed shut.
Darcy reared back at my jab like I’d slapped him.
“Yeah? Well, that’s a shame. I know no lad in the village has touched second base with you, let alone pulled off a home run, so if not me, who would you lose your virginity to?”
It was my turn to pull back and stare at him.
He did not just say that.
“I’m not a virgin, Darcy.”
I wanted to kick myself, because for someone who hated lying so much I seemed to be doing plenty of it, but this time it was to hide something personal, so it didn’t mean anything. I mean, I was a virgin, but how the hell did Darcy know that?
Do I have it stamped on my forehead or something?
“Yes, you are,” Darcy argued.
What the hell?
“Explain to me how you came to that conclusion. I’ve apparently got nothing but time here with you, so go ahead,” I said, and made a big deal out of getting comfortable.
I probably looked at ease, but what Darcy couldn’t see was that my heartbeat had become erratic. My palms were sweaty, and my breathing was uneven.
I didn’t know how he knew something so personal about me, and I hated that I’d asked, because deep down I didn’t want to know, but at the same time I did.
Darcy looked at me, really looked at me, and shook his head.
“Never mind.”
He went to stand up, but I grabbed his wrist and held him put.
“No, tell me.”
Darcy again shook his head. “Drop it, Neala.”
There was no trace of a smile on his face.
“No. Tell me.”
He growled, “You don’t want me to, trust me.”
What did that mean?
“Darcy, will you just tell me?”
He shook off my hold on him, and dropped his head to look at the ground. “Fine,” he grunted. “Do you remember when we were sixteen, and Laura Stoke had her eighteenth birthday party down in O’Leary’s pub, but it went on to the early hours and we all went back to her house?”
I swallowed. I did remember that party. Laura Stoke was, and still is, Darcy’s fuck buddy or secret girlfriend. I still didn’t know why I had gone to the party, or why I was even invited. It was no secret Laura and I didn’t like one another, but I had gone anyway just to say I went to a party. But the party had turned out to be different than I’d thought it would be.
Very different.
I would never forget that night, but I did a damn good job of trying to.
“Yeah, I remember. What about it?” I muttered.
Darcy swallowed, then said, “It was around two in the morning, and Sean asked me to go check on you. You told him you were going to the bathroom before we took you home, but you were taking your time. He figured you were somewhere with Jess and Sarah drinking and shite like that.”
I sat in silence as he spoke.
He laughed lightly. “I thought you were off somewhere in the house and that you just didn’t want to be near me. But to appease your brother I went upstairs to check on you, and I heard you inside the bathroom . . . I heard him too.”
I froze in my seat.
“W-what?” I whispered.
“I know, Neala,” he replied, his voice barely audible.
Oh, my God.
He knew?
That was the worst night of my life, my only secret, and Darcy knew about it?
“I heard you laughing, then slurring so I knew you had somehow got some drinks into you,” Darcy said, then balled his hands into fists. “I heard Trevor Nash, the fucking wanker, telling you to give him head, and then I heard you comply. You said okay. I wanted to stop you, but I knew it was your mistake to make, and if I intervened you would have just hated me even more than you already did.”
He sat back then and leaned his head against the couch.
“I don’t know why I stayed outside the door; something in me gut told me to, so I did. It was lucky I did, because when Trevor told you to pull up your skirt and you said no, I heard the noise of the slap he gave you. I didn’t hesitate; I kicked the door open, and the sight of you on the ground with Trevor standing over you undoing his jeans enraged me. As you can expect, I punched the shite out of the prick.” Darcy kept his eyes averted as he spoke.
My throat closed up at the admission. I stared at Darcy blankly, blinking.
He had saved me?
I wanted to cry, hug him, thank him . . . but I couldn’t move. I felt frozen.
“I only stopped hitting him when I heard you starting to cry. I picked you up, and when I tried to bring you downstairs you begged me not to, because you didn’t want Sean to know what had happened. You were pretty out of it, so I had no clue if you knew it was me you were talking to. It was weird. You asked me not to tell anyone because everyone would think you wer
e a slut for giving Trevor head even though you were really a virgin.”
I blinked back hot tears when Darcy turned his head to the side and looked at me. He didn’t look through me like he usually did; he looked at me and saw me.
“So I didn’t tell anyone, and to this day I haven’t. I brought you down the hall and sat down with you until you fell asleep. Trevor stumbled out of the bathroom and out of the house without anyone noticing during your slumber. You woke up about thirty minutes later, and instead of being upset, you shouted at me for being so close to you. You remembered what Trevor did, I could tell by the look on your face, but you didn’t remember any of what I did. I didn’t know if it had anything to do with what you drank or if your mind had blocked it out, but you had no idea what I did for you. It didn’t matter that I didn’t tell anyone what he was about to do to you either, because karma got him back later that night.”
The karma he was referring to was the accident Trevor had got into after he stole a car with two of his friends after he left the party. A drunken Trevor had crashed the car – he was driving at such a speed down the mountain that he’d wrapped the vehicle around a tree. Literally. The crash instantly killed all three of them. I couldn’t say I’d been sad to hear it either.
I felt for Trevor’s family, and the families of his friends, but that was it.
I remembered the look on his face when I’d told him no, and I remember knowing that he was going to try to force me to do what he wanted me to do. If he’d got the chance, he would have raped me that night.
But he didn’t, and now I knew why.
Darcy had stopped him.
“Darcy . . . I—”
“Don’t. Don’t thank me for something anyone would have stepped in to stop.”
I swallowed the lump that still sat in my throat. “You stopped him from raping me. I don’t think you realise the years of hurt and pain you saved me from.”
Darcy looked back up to the ceiling and sighed. “I don’t think that’s true. I’ve put you through some crazy shite over the last few years.”
I wiped my eyes as I unexpectedly snorted. “Our fights were the best thing for me back then; they gave me something to focus on so I wouldn’t focus on what . . . what almost happened.”
Darcy gave me a one-shoulder shrug. “I know. It’s why I hassled you so much. It let me know you still had fight in you.”
That was almost romantic.
“Thank you, Darcy,” I said, and meant it.
He sighed. “You’re welcome, Neala Girl.”
I didn’t know what to do then. I had never been in a situation before with Darcy where we were civil, so I flipped it around to familiar territory.
“You have really hassled me this week. The doll, remember?”
Darcy groaned. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I hope you enjoy disappointment, because you aren’t getting it.”
What?
“Excuse me?”
Darcy looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “What’s the shocked look for?”
“You just revealed something so deeply intimate to me. You just told me you stopped me from being raped when I was a teenager . . . and yet you still won’t give me the fucking doll?”
He blinked at me. “I didn’t think telling you what you asked to hear was an invitation for you to think you had a claim on the doll.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
Darcy shrugged. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
I glared at him. “You still didn’t answer me question. You said I was a virgin, but how would you know that? I was a virgin back when I was sixteen, but I’m twenty-five now.”
“So?”
“So, I’m not a little girl anymore.”
Darcy did something that caused my insides to jump: he looked down to my body, then back up to my eyes. “I can see that, but so what? Your body grew, but you’re still the same girl I’ve known all my life. You took what happened very seriously, like any person would. You wouldn’t get with just anyone back then, and even more so now. I don’t know for certain if you’re a virgin, but I’m pretty damn sure you are. You’re guarded; you don’t get close to people. Your idea of a night on the town is a trip down to the pub with our families. You aren’t an out there kind of girl, so I can’t imagine you just dropping your knickers at the drop of a hat for anyone.”
“Like Laura Stoke, you mean?” I widened my eyes right after I said it.
I didn’t mean for that thought to slip out.
Darcy chuckled. “Yeah, you’re nothing like Laura Stoke, Neala Girl.”
Wow.
Talk about a low blow.
Laura Stoke was everything I wasn’t. She was tall, slim, had a big arse and big boobs. As much as I hated to admit it, she was beautiful and had naturally long, thick, strawberry blond hair. Darcy saying I was nothing like her shouldn’t have hurt or upset me so much, but damn it, it did.
“You know what? Fuck you, Darcy!” I snapped, and stood up off the couch and stormed out of the room. “And I am a virgin,” I shouted, “but so what?”
“What the hell did I do?” Darcy blurted as he followed me out of the living room and into the kitchen.
I stormed all the way into the storage room and slammed the door shut behind me.
“Neala, are you seriously escaping me by going back into the storage room?”
I was trying to escape.
I pounded my fists on the door. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
He was silent for a moment; then a little thud came against the door and I didn’t know if he was leaning against it or not.
“I don’t know what is wrong with you, and you can bet your arse we’ll be talking about it, but if you wanna sulk in there like a child for a while, go ahead.”
Don’t take the bait.
“I will.”
“You do that.” Darcy laughed.
I screeched, “Go. Away!”
God.
“No, this is my house, remember?”
He just couldn’t leave me alone!
I grunted in defeat and kicked the door open; it hit Darcy, who was standing behind it, and he yelped like a girl. That made me feel a little better. I stepped out of the storage room and walked out like nothing was wrong. I made sure to ignore Darcy and stupid Einstein.
He grabbed my arm in the hallway and spun me around to face him.
“Okay, what is wrong with you?”
I deadpanned, “You don’t know?”
“I really don’t, so enlighten me.”
“You called me fat and ugly.”
Darcy stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes. “You’ve officially lost your mind.”
I scoffed, “How do you figure that?”
He placed his free hand on my other arm and shook me.
“I did not call you fat or ugly. I never even mentioned the words.”
“You didn’t have to; it was implied.”
Darcy looked so confused that I almost pitied him.
Almost.
“Neala . . . What the fuck?”
I blew a large amount of air through my nostrils and said, “You said I was nothing like Laura Stokes. She is perfect, if there is such a thing. She is gorgeous, tall, and skinny, and everything else that I’m not. I don’t care that I’m not, but you didn’t have to say it.”
Darcy’s shoulders slumped a little.
“You got mad because I said you aren’t like Laura?”
I shrugged. “Call me crazy, but no girl, even an enemy, likes hearing they’re nothing like a girl who could easily pass for a supermodel.”
He stared at me for a long moment, and then the bastard burst out laughing.
I was instantly furious.
“You’re an insensitive piece of—”
“You’re crazy if you took what I said as an insult instead of a compliment.” Darcy cut me off, still laughing.
Come again?
&nbs
p; “Wait a fecking minute; I’m supposed to be flattered you think I’m nothing like Laura?” I clarified.
Darcy nodded.
“How do you figure that one?” I snapped.
He just shook his head and laughed.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
Darcy tilted his head back and sighed before he lowered his head, and his gaze, back to mine.
“Do you want to stand here and talk about this, or do you want to get out of this house?”
Topic change.
I hesitated for a moment, then said, “Get out of the house.”
Darcy nodded once. “That’s what I thought, so help me figure a way out of here.”
I’d let it go for the moment, but as soon as we weren’t in a survivor panic mode I would be back on his case, demanding to know what he meant.
“Okay, so all the doors and windows are blocked up with snow. The smart thing to do now would be to ring someone to help get us out of here.”
I chewed on my lower lip for a moment, then gasped. “I left me phone in the pub with me ma last night!”
At the time I hadn’t wanted to bring it with me, because I had no pockets on my blazer or my dress. It would have been awkward to hold when I realised I needed a bike to get up the mountain, too. I then thought about the bike, and the kid who had loaned it to me, and groaned inwardly. He was so going to tell his parents I stole the stupid thing from him.
“Good thing I have mine then, isn’t it?” Darcy quipped, then turned and headed down the hall to his bedroom.
I pulled a face at the back of his head as I followed him. Leaning against the doorway of his bedroom, I watched as he retrieved his phone from his bedside table. He turned to me and smirked as he waved it in my direction. I stuck my middle finger up at him, to which he shook his head.
“Nice.” He snorted and pressed on the screen of his phone.
The lights in his bedroom went off.
I yelped, and so did Einstein from the kitchen.
“It’s okay, sweetie!” Darcy called out.
I gripped the panel of the doorway. “I’m okay, Darcy.”
Silence.
“I was talking to Einstein.”
I glared into the darkness. “You’re more concerned for your bird than you are me?”
