Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  “Don’t say it like it’s ridiculous.”

  “Well, Mars, you grew up in a small town. You know how it goes. People talk about the last ridiculous thing you did until you give them something else to talk about.”

  “I destroyed Homecoming, not just for the Homecoming Court but also the soccer team. I ruined Travis’s college sports career.”

  “First of all, I wouldn’t say you ruined it. I’d say you made it interesting. You unmasked a villain.”

  “And then injured the soccer team’s star player,” she added.

  “You know there’s two kinds of people in this world,” I began.

  “You mean the kind who divide all of humanity into two groups and the kind who don’t?”

  “Har. Hilarious. There are people who take too much responsibility for everything and the people who don’t take responsibility for anything.”

  “Which one are you?” God, she was pretty with the moonlight filtering in through the windshield. Her eyes were big and sad, and all I wanted to do was kiss that mouth into a smile.

  “I’m one of the perfect ones who only takes credit for what I’m actually responsible for,” I said smugly. “Now, it sounds to me like you’ve been carrying a lot of baggage around with you for too long.”

  “Everyone hated me,” she said in a small voice.

  I was surprised by her statement. But a few things started to fall into place. “No, they didn’t. Maybe you’re only remembering Amie Jo and her inner circle of demons, but you were a hero to half the school. You don’t think you were the only person that girl tormented, do you?”

  She shrugged, but I could tell she was listening.

  “You weren’t hated,” I promised her. “And you’re certainly not hated now.”

  She wet her lips, drawing my attention back to the mouth that fascinated me. “I just hate being judged on my eighteen-year-old self.”

  “Honey, we all do.”

  Marley looked at me, her wheels turning. “But your antics were a lot more fun.”

  “Do you think I like having every class of students know that a substitute teacher got fired and could have gone to jail because I talked her into a make-out session in the copy room?”

  She made a noncommittal noise.

  “You really think I like that attention?” I poked her in the shoulder, and she grinned.

  “Maybe I made a few unfair assumptions.”

  I reached out and twirled a strand of her hair around my finger. “My point is, none of us are who we were at eighteen. Not even Amie Jo. And especially not you. You know what people remember more than a salacious story from our teenage years?”

  “What?” she asked, resting her cheek against my hand. I felt something warm slide through my belly.

  “How you make them feel now.”

  “You definitely aren’t the same guy you were twenty years ago,” Marley admitted.

  “So let’s go out there and erase a few old memories tonight,” I told her, nodding in the direction of the bonfire.

  She bit her lip and studied me. And then she was leaning across the console and placing a soft, sweet kiss on my mouth. That warmth in my belly turned molten. This was something different from the fun and familiar tug of lust. This was something more. Marley was something more.

  She pulled back, that smile I wanted on her lips.

  “Thanks, Coach.”

  * * *

  We joined the crowd that ringed the tall flames in the middle of the star-lit field. I’d always found comfort in my history with Culpepper. I’d known the same people for decades now. And they knew me. We were part of each other’s memories. There was something to be said for sharing that kind of intimate knowledge of each other.

  We understood each other.

  I knew that it was apple cider in Wes Zimmerman’s cup because he’d quit drinking after a DUI six years ago. I also knew that as much as Heidi and Elton Pyle joked around about how hard raising triplets was, they thanked their lucky stars every moment of every day after a seven-year battle with infertility. I knew that Belinda Carlisle—not that one—needed a longer hug tonight because her mom was in hospice care and not expected to make it to the holidays.

  I watched Marley join in the horseshoes game by the fire with Andrea, the guidance counselor, Faith Malpezzi, and our classmate Mariah. She was welcomed into their group like a long-lost friend. And really, that’s what she was. Marley had extricated herself from Culpepper. She’d left after senior year and never looked back. So it made sense that she was frozen in everyone’s mind as the girl who had been pushed too far in senior year.

  “Hey, cuz!”

  My cousin, Adeline, popped up next to me looking not a day over fourteen. She credited her Vietnamese heritage and Uncle Lewis’s lessons on skincare.

  “Hey, Addy.” I looped my arm over her shoulder. “Long time, no see.”

  My cousin might look like she was too young to drive, but she was a successful sales rep for an alternative energy company and spent a lot of her time traveling.

  “I’m back for the rest of the year,” she said with a happy sigh.

  “I bet Rob is happy to have you back,” I predicted. Addy’s husband, Rob, worked from home. Together, with their four kids, they achieved a delicate balance of work and family life.

  “He kissed my feet when I got off the plane,” she joked. “So is that your girl?” Addy pointed her cup in Marley’s direction.

  “News travels fast,” I said dryly.

  “Spare me your social commentary on small-town gossip. Are you guys serious?”

  I thought about our arrangement. Our temporary arrangement. And I thought about those wide, brown eyes looking up at me.

  “Maybe a little more serious for me,” I admitted.

  “Well, well,” she said smugly. “It’s about damn time. What do my dads think?”

  “I’ve been putting off their family dinner invitations.”

  She laughed. “Your mom’s birthday is next week. You have to bring her to the party, or they’ll riot.”

  I sighed. “I know. I will. Unless she has a game.”

  “Then we’ll reschedule,” she said helpfully.

  I put her in a headlock and gave her glossy black hair a brotherly scruff. “Enough about me. What’s new in your life?”

  “I’m pregnant with surprise baby number five, and Rob is getting a vasectomy tomorrow.”

  I laughed loud and long. “Tell me this is the kid you’re finally naming after me.”

  “Baby Jake O’Connell due next May,” she said, waving at her husband, a tall Irish-looking guy who was trash talking a neighbor in Baltimore Ravens gear. He blew her a kiss and raised his beer at me.

  “Tell your dads yet?” I asked, raising my beer in response.

  My uncles had the best good news reactions.

  “Saving it for your mom’s birthday dinner.”

  “She’ll love that.”

  “Give your girl a heads up,” Addy said, nodding in Marley’s direction. “Does she even know what she’s getting into with the Weston clan?”

  “Now, what’s the fun in warning anyone in advance? If memory serves, you didn’t even tell Rob you had two dads,” I mused.

  She grinned. “Yeah. And he stuck, didn’t he?”

  “Maybe a fifth kid will push him over the edge?” I teased.

  “How about I go get my baby maker, and you introduce us to your very pretty lady friend?” she suggested.

  “Fine. Just don’t get your fertility all over the two of us.”

  45

  Marley

  Three months ago, if someone had suggested I’d be hanging out at a Culpepper bonfire enjoying myself, I would have called them a drunk and a dirty liar.

  Yet here I was, slinging horseshoes at a barely visible stake plunked in the uneven pastureland.

  Andrea, my new friend and part-time counselor, was looking cozy in a puffy jacket and headband that covered her ears. Mariah and Faith, my old friends, w
ere bundled up against the fall chill reminiscing about back in the day.

  Mercifully, no one had said a word about Homecoming. Yet.

  “So you have how many kids?” I asked Faith.

  “Three. They’re exhausting, and I feel like a failure every day,” she said chipperly.

  “Preach, sister,” Mariah agreed. “I have two kids and work part-time, and I still can’t get a grocery list made or the Halloween costumes bought.”

  “To bad moms!” They clinked beers. Andrea giggled.

  I liked their honesty. There was no white-washing or one-upping. They weren’t trying to prove who was the best. And it felt refreshing.

  “What about you, Marley? What’s life outside of Culpepper like?”

  I could have told them lies. Could have spun real life into something that sounded exciting and respectable. But, damn it, I was tired of trying to paint a fucking picture.

  “It’s busy. There’s never any time for anything but the absolute necessities. I’ve been meaning to go to the gym for six years now,” I confessed.

  They laughed like I was doing a stand-up routine.

  “Oh, you always were the funny one,” Faith sighed, wiping at the corner of her eyes.

  “I was?” I asked. “I always thought I was the mousy, sad one, hiding in the corner waiting for someone to like her.”

  “Nope. That was me,” Mariah insisted.

  I blinked. Mariah had been artsy and smart and, to my recollection, rather popular.

  “Uh, no way. I laid claim to Sad Mousy One,” Faith argued. She had been in every stage production Culpepper Junior/Senior High put on. And she made it to the semifinals in the state spelling bee when we were in the fifth grade.

  “Guidance counselor secret,” Andrea said, leaning in. “Ninety percent of people remember high school as a miserable experience.”

  “What about you, Disney princess? I bet you were prom queen and captain of the volleyball team,” I guessed.

  Andrea snorted. “I had braces until I was nineteen and didn’t get breasts until I was twenty-one. And I was really into graphic novels. I got into the guidance counselor thing so I could tell kids like me that, usually, life after high school is a lot better.”

  “Now, there’s someone who remembers high school fondly,” Mariah said, raising her cup in the direction of the fire.

  Amie Jo strolled through the crowd, greeting people like a sash-wearing beauty contestant. She was wearing a pink parka and yet another pair of Uggs, also pink. She’d probably throw them out after an evening in a cold, muddy pasture and break out the next pair in her inventory, I guessed.

  Travis was behind her. If Amie Jo’s outfit had a train, he’d be carrying it.

  “She’s wearing fake eyelashes and hair extensions to a bonfire,” Faith observed with a head shake.

  “I admire the effort, but I’d rather gouge my eyes out with bacon tongs than spend my free time locked in a bathroom in an endless search for perfection,” Mariah claimed.

  “We only have one bathroom,” Faith laughed. “If I tied it up for an hour at a time, my husband would break down the door with the sports section in one hand and his Sudoku in the other.”

  We laughed, and I turned my back on the picture-perfect Hostetters. They didn’t need any more attention.

  I saw Jake coming. He had a pretty girl and a gangly redheaded man in tow.

  “Marley Cicero, meet my cousin Adeline O’Connell and her husband, Rob,” Jake said, taking my empty cup and handing me a fresh one. “Adeline? Rob? This is my girlfriend, Marley.”

  I felt my cheeks warm at the “girlfriend” introduction. I liked having that designation with Jake. I liked being attached to him in that way. And, if I were continuing with the whole honesty thing, I would be forced to admit that I liked just about everything associated with Jake.

  As if reading my mind, he gave me a slow wink. There must be something in the smoke here, casting its spell of attraction. Or maybe it was the cold beer, enjoyed under a crisp autumn sky. Whatever the source of the magic, the “fake” in our relationship was becoming less and less important to me.

  We made small talk, shooting the shit. Interweaving old memories with new stories. And I didn’t hate it. Not with Jake’s arm around my shoulders. Not with old friends, once forgotten, reminding me that childhood and high school hadn’t been quite as bad as I remembered it.

  It was too good to last.

  “Oh. My. God,” Amie Jo screeched as if seeing me for the first time. “What happened to your hair? Did you demand your money back?” She shouldered her way into our happy little circle, carrying a glass of wine. Only Amie Jo would show up to a bonfire with her own crystal.

  “Oh, you don’t like it? Darn,” I said, lightly.

  “You don’t like it, do you? I mean, I don’t see how you could. If you need someone to fix it, I’d be happy to recommend my stylist. But she books out months in advance. She’s very popular.” This clearly was not Amie Jo’s first crystal goblet of wine.

  “Amie Jo,” Travis appeared behind her and laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He sounded embarrassed.

  “What? I’m just offering to help,” she said batting her lashes, the picture of innocence.

  “That’s very sweet of you,” I said as Jake reeled me in closer. “But I’m happy with everything just the way it is.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I could hear her run through her long list of barely veiled insults. I didn’t necessarily blame her. I’d taken a crown away from her senior year. I’d embarrassed her and ruined her senior year as much as she’d ruined mine.

  “Hi, Jake,” Amie Jo chirped.

  Ah, she’d settled on the “flirt with the enemy’s date” route.

  “Hi, Hostetters,” Jake said cheerfully. He ran his hand through my hair, an intimate gesture that had his cousin’s eyebrows skyrocketing.

  “You should have gone blonde,” Amie Jo said to me, fluffing her platinum mane. “I always have more fun.”

  “I prefer brunettes,” Jake said, winking at me lecherously.

  I didn’t know if he was standing up for me, slapping Amie Jo down, or complimenting me. Whatever it was, it made my intestines feel like they were full of molten Hershey’s chocolate. In a good way.

  “If you’ll excuse us. I think I need to make out with my lady in the shadows,” Jake said. He led me by the hand out of the group, away from the crackle and heat of the bonfire.

  I laughed. “Well, that’s an exit everyone will be talking about,” I said dryly.

  But he just pulled me deeper into the night until it was just the two of us and the dark.

  And then he was kissing me. Slow and deep. Thoroughly. Like he wanted the air I was breathing. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on for dear life.

  He’d kissed me before. I’d kissed him. But this was the first time that I felt like our agreement, the premise of our relationship, was disintegrating under newly applied heat.

  This felt real.

  It didn’t feel like a game or a joke or pretend.

  I kissed him back, pouring myself into him. Letting myself go. For once.

  He pulled back and ran his thumb over my lower lip. “I loved looking across the fire and seeing you smile at me,” he said gruffly.

  Oh, crap. There was nothing fake about that declaration.

  “Maybe we should talk about this,” I suggested. If we got a bit of air, if we talked it through, maybe the terrifying edge of these feelings would wear down. Maybe I could manage them. Survive them.

  “I have a better idea than talking,” Jake said softly.

  He shoved one hand into my nice, new hair and used the other to drag me against him.

  46

  Marley

  “Come home with me.” Jake wasn’t asking or begging. It wasn’t even a question, an offer. It was a statement. A direct order.

  And I had no intention of arguing with him. Not even for posterity’s sake.

  I wanted to be wanted. E
ven just for one night. And especially by him.

  I was throbbing everywhere for him. The pulse between my legs had gone beyond noticeable to life-threatening. I wanted his touch on every square inch of my body. Even the parts I wasn’t totally fond of. I wanted him to blaze a trail from my scalp to my toes. Kissing and licking his way over me until we were both satisfied. Or dead.

  I kissed him again, reveling in the scrape of his stubble against my jaw. The pressure of his mouth against mine, the heat that he was pouring into me.

  I’d had half a beer, but my head swam as if an entire bottle of tequila had found its way into my bloodstream. This is what Jake Weston did to a woman. And he was doing it to me. Finally.

  Without breaking our hold on each other, we fumbled through the tree line that skirted Chaz’s pasture, tripping and stumbling back to Jake’s SUV.

  And when his hands slid under my sweater and cupped my breasts through my bra, I knew we weren’t making it home.

  Still kissing him, still making needy little groans, I wrestled the back door open.

  “Are you kidding me right now, Mars?” he asked, his teeth nipping at my earlobe.

  “Do you want to wait until we get back to your place when I’ve had a whole car ride to come to my senses?” I asked, scooting onto the back seat.

  “No. No, I do not,” he said, jumping in behind me. “Take off your shoes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Shoes, Mars. Lose ’em,” he said, shrugging out of his coat and dragging his shirt over his head. Oh, Lord. The ink. The muscle. The chest hair.

  Jake Weston was all man. And, for tonight, he was all mine.

  I kicked off my boots, and then his nimble fingers went to work at the fly of my jeans. Hypnotized, I watched his hands as they competently worked my pants down. I lifted my hips to help while he wrangled them past my knees and stripped them off completely.

  “Turn around, Mars,” he said. His voice was ragged like a gravel road. “Hands and knees.”

  That would put my ass in his face. I didn’t usually like to shove my very round, rather full posterior in men’s faces.