by S. Massery
“Glad you’re with it enough to notice it’s dark out,” I grumble. “It’s Saturday night. Like eight-ish. I texted you twice, but you didn’t respond, and I got worried. Why?”
“Just wanted to see how long it took you to notice.”
“You’re really going to dissect the time it took me to find you?”
He shrugs and climbs to his feet. I rise, too, holding out my hands. He doesn’t need me, although he does take one of my hands, tugging me closer.
He rubs his thumb between my brows.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to erase your concern.”
I scoff. “I found you on the floor in a dark room. I’m not supposed to be concerned?”
He shrugs. “Nope. I’m fine.” He leads me out of the room, into a hallway that cuts straight to the kitchen. He grabs a bag of frozen veggies and puts it to the back of his head, winking at me. “Let’s leave.”
“Eli is still wandering around,” I say.
He pauses. “Is he now?”
“Nope!” Eli says, rushing toward us. He propels Riley in front of us. “Your aunt and uncle just got home.”
Caleb straightens. “Everyone out!”
We slip out the back door, around the side of the house. The garage door opening is loud, and we wait until it’s silent for us to open the gate. We slink along the tall shrubs dividing the property from their neighbors, and I take a moment to cast a silent thank you that Eli moved his truck.
Once we’re in, all of us let out relieved sighs. I lean into Caleb’s side, wrapping my arms around him.
“Didn’t take you very long at all,” he muses. “Eli?”
He glances back at us. “Well, we all know what happened last time…”
I shudder.
“I told him to shove it,” he informs us. “And then he hit me with something… I don’t know. I was on my way out.”
We’re on the road, but I still push up onto my knees and move the bag out of the way. He leans forward slightly, letting me inspect his scalp. There’s an inch-long gash of dried blood just above where his neck meets his skull.
“He could’ve killed you,” I whisper.
Eli growls. “This is ridiculous. I’m telling my parents—not all of it, don’t throw a fucking hissy fit back there.”
Caleb doesn’t react.
“They won’t let David come back. We’ll change the locks—”
“I just have to last four more months,” Caleb says woodenly. “That’s all.”
“That’s all,” Eli sneers.
I imagine this isn’t the first time they’ve had such a conversation.
We end up back at Eli’s house, and the four of us pile out. I hang back a minute, sending a text to Robert and Lenora. Angela made a point about communication, and I want to do well. I want them to actually like me enough to let me stay.
Hence the texting.
A minute later my phone buzzes.
Robert: Len and I are fine with you sleeping over. Have fun with Riley!
Okay, so maybe my communication isn’t the best…
“Come on, Wolfe!” Eli yells. “We’re ordering pizza!”
I tuck my phone away and go in, taking a deep breath. Riley and Eli are in the kitchen. I peek into the living room and dining room, then make my way down to the basement.
Caleb is standing in the middle of the room. His attention is focused on his bed.
“You okay?” I ask.
He turns toward me. His eyes are dark. He lowers the frozen bag from his head and beckons me closer. “You came for me.”
I shift, taking a small step in his direction.
“Margo.”
“Don’t make it a big deal.”
He meets me halfway, his hand sliding around my neck and into my hair.
I melt. Can’t help it. I hold on to his waist and tip my head back. He leans down, and my heart pounds, tremors spreading through me. His lips are millimeters away, and he pauses.
“It is a big deal. Can you just admit that?”
I press my lips together.
He smiles, twisting to the side. He kisses the corner of my mouth.
I’m already winded.
“You care so damn much.”
I shake my head. “Stop.”
“Is it a bad thing?”
Is it? Caring about people gets them taken away.
Caleb’s whole body is flush against mine. I can feel just how much he cares. His lips travel down the side of my jaw, to my throat. I jump at the scrape of his teeth on my skin, the feeling sending tingles through me like runaway firecrackers.
“God,” I moan. “Fine. It is a big deal. I hate your uncle for hitting you. I wish you didn’t get hurt. I—”
I almost just confessed my heart away because he’s kissing me.
Grow up, Margo.
I grab his face and drag it to mine. I capture his lower lip in my teeth, nipping and releasing. He growls deep in the back of his throat, but he lets me have control. I walk him backward until his knees hit the side of the bed.
He lowers himself, and I straddle him, opening his lips and sliding my tongue into his mouth. His hips raise ever so slightly, his erection rubbing against my core.
“I need to feel you,” I whisper. “Is this going to hurt?”
“Fuck, no,” he says.
He reaches over to his nightstand and finds a condom while I yank off my leggings. I climb back on him and unbuckle his pants, then tug them down far enough for his erection to spring free. Impulsively, I scoot back and lean down. We did this once—right after the masquerade ball—but this is going to be different.
“Ah, fuck,” he says.
Slowly, I lean forward and lick up his length. His groan is an encouragement, and I swirl my tongue over the head of his cock. I take him in my mouth, my tongue sliding around, and his thighs automatically tense. I open my jaw wider, letting him in deeper. He hits the back of my throat, but I don’t gag. My nostrils flare.
Deeper.
He hisses out a breath. I come back up, sucking and stroking him with my hand. His fingers wind in my hair, taking back an ounce of power.
“Fuck, Margo,” he grunts.
I keep going until he can’t control the movement of his hips.
He abruptly yanks me up onto his chest. “If you keep doing that, I’ll come, and where would that leave you?” He rolls a condom on, his eyes on mine.
I barely have time to catch my breath, then he drives up into me.
We both groan.
I put my hands on his chest, leaning back. He makes me feel complete. And yeah, that’s some bullshit we could go over in therapy, but right now? I let my head fall back and I feel it. I rise, thrilled at the sight of him between my legs, then slowly lower back onto him. I’m shakier than a newborn deer, every micromovement sending waves of electricity through me.
Once I’m steady, I move faster. Our thighs slap together.
His grip tightens on my hips, slamming me down onto him.
“Look at me.” His hand slips to my clit.
I gasp, holding on to him. It’s too much. There’s too much emotion assaulting me. He’s hitting a spot deep inside me, working me up higher. I freeze, and an orgasm crashes over me. It’s hardly over when he flips me onto my back and thrusts into me.
His pace is brutal, but it doesn’t last. He shudders above me, letting his head fall to my shoulder as he comes. His whole body jerks, then stills.
“Did that make your head worse?” I ask.
He snorts. “Maybe. But it was worth it.”
“Come on, lovebirds,” Eli yells from the top of the stairs. “Pizza is here!”
“Perfect timing,” Caleb murmurs. He kisses the tip of my nose and hops up.
I follow him into the bathroom, and we clean up in silence.
We walk into the kitchen, and Riley and Eli grin at us.
“Couldn’t wait until after we ate, huh?” Eli laughs. He throws an ice pack at Caleb.
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My face heats up. We were pretty quiet, but—
“You reek of sex,” Eli continues. “Seriously, guys. It’s kind of turning me on.”
Riley jabs him with her elbow.
I go to the boxes of pizza, ignoring their chatter. I’m still tangled in a web of worry. He probably has a concussion. I just fucked a concussed person.
I don’t have an appetite. I stare down at the pizza, inhaling the scent of cheese and garlic, and my stomach turns over.
It isn’t just finding Caleb bloody and alone in his uncle’s house. It’s that plus the fact that he kissed my nose and my heart skipped a beat. It’s that Angela visited and she asked how I was doing, and for the first time in a really freaking long time, I was able to say, Great!
We talked about long-term fostering, going to court to petition for the Jenkins’s right to adopt me, the steps we’d have to take. She mentioned restarting therapy, and Robert and Lenora agreed.
I exhale and close the lid on the pizza.
Caleb comes up behind me, one hand sliding around my waist, and his hand splays over my stomach, pulling me back against him.
“Not hungry?” he asks. “After that?”
I shrug, glancing away.
Why can’t I just lean into happiness? It’s right there, begging me to take it.
“What’s wrong?” His breath hits my neck, followed by his lips.
I tilt my head to the side. His other arm comes around me, dropping the ice pack on the counter, then locking around my chest. I’m thoroughly encompassed.
“You can tell me.”
“Everything,” I whisper. “Everything’s wrong. Do you ever just feel sad for no reason?”
He twists me around, cupping my jaw and tilting my head up.
I keep my gaze on his chin.
“Margo.”
I press my lips together.
“You have every reason to fall apart,” he says. “My fault—I wanted you to break. But I changed my mind.” He frowns. “You changed my mind. Because you’re still…”
I’m hanging on the edge of a knife.
“You’re still good. A bit devious.” He winks. “But at your heart?”
“Stop.” I push away from him.
He doesn’t let me go. His fingers dig into my neck, and he tugs me even closer. “You stop. Don’t run away.”
I wasn’t is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t voice it.
He releases me and grabs the box of pizza. “My head is killing me,” he announces to Riley and Eli.
They pause their conversation. Riley’s eyebrows jump up.
“Come on, Margo.” And then he just leaves. His feet pounding down the steps to the basement.
“You okay?” Riley asks.
If only people would stop asking me that. I force a smile. “Dandy.”
“Don’t let him push you around,” she says.
I scoff.
“She’s been on a roll standing up to him,” she adds, glancing at Eli.
He glowers at her.
“On that note, I’m going home.” She grabs her purse and slings it over her shoulder.
Eli jumps up. “What? Already?”
Riley smirks. “Does that bother you? I still have a curfew, even on a Saturday.”
“Fine,” he snaps. “I’ll drive.”
I watch the two of them walk out, and suddenly I’m entirely alone. It doesn’t feel good.
I hurry to the basement and stop on the third-to-last stair. Caleb suddenly appears at the bottom. At this angle, I’m just a little taller than him.
“Eli and Riley leave?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“And you?”
I shake my head. “What about me?”
“Do you want to leave?” His eyes are impossibly dark.
“You should get some rest.” I take a step back.
He follows me up. “They say the opposite for a concussion,” he argues. “If I have one, which is doubtful.”
I bite my lip. “What do you remember?”
He huffs. “I’ll tell you if you’re naked.”
I hesitate.
He smirks. “Clothes, off. All of them this time.”
In our haste, we hadn’t removed our shirts. But now… I grab the hem of my shirt and lift it off, letting it fall from my fingertips behind me. My bra is next. He drags my leggings over my hips, and I hold his shoulders to step out of them. Then panties.
He hops off the step and stares at me.
“Your turn,” I mumble, trying not to let my self-consciousness overwhelm me. I haven’t had this feeling before—shaky. The last time we had good sex, in the hotel room after the ball, I trusted him.
I don’t know if I trust him now.
He captured my heart so slowly, I barely realized he was taking it. But my heart is just a fraction of the picture. And now, letting him peruse my body, I realize there’s still broken shards between us.
He wants it that way. He thinks he’s broken. The thought comes on suddenly, out of nowhere. But he’s so wrong. I will file you smooth, I vow. One sharp edge at a time.
“Strip,” I demand. “Fair is fair.”
His eyebrow jumps up. “Have we ever played fair?”
I raise my chin. “Starting now.”
He just watches me for a moment, then nods. He unbuttons his pants and lets them drop around his ankles. Then boxers. He hesitates on his shirt, but I have no such reservations. Not when it comes to him.
I walk to him and take over, pulling his shirt over his head. I drop it on the floor and run my finger down his chest. He has hard abs and faint white scars. I circle around him, tracing an invisible path with my index finger, and he stands perfectly still.
I touch a pink, raised scar. This was a welt not too long ago. A welt that was his uncle’s doing. He shudders.
I bite my lip and keep going. There are old scars, barely visible in the low light. Circular ones that catch the light. “He burned you?”
“I don’t know what’s worse—growing up like you did, or like me.”
I lean forward and kiss one of the scars. He shivers beneath my lips, and my chest aches like he just punched out my heart. He had family, but at a steep cost.
“I wish I remembered what happened.”
He turns around and lifts my chin with his finger. “Do you?”
“You could tell me,” I whisper.
He shakes his head and pushes my hair off my shoulder. “You’d never believe me.”
My mind goes back to ten years old. One minute we’re happy ten-year-olds chasing each other through his house, and the next, I’m at the park with Dad. He’s being taken away.
There’s a gaping hole, and it’s driving me mad.
I open my mouth to ask another question.
“Leave it for tonight,” he says. “I wasn’t lying about my head hurting.”
Well, then. I climb into his bed, folding myself into a little ball with my back against the wall. I pat the space beside me. “You said you’d tell me what you remember.”
He joins me, picking me up and putting me on his lap. I wrap my arm around his shoulders. The room is a bit chilly, and goosebumps break out along my arms and legs. He draws a pattern on my thigh.
“What do I remember?” he muses. “Yelling at my uncle. Telling him enough was enough.”
“Yelling at him about what?”
“My right to live.”
It’s a bit cryptic, honestly, but I don’t question him further. We just sit in the quiet for a few minutes. My eyes track the pattern he’s drawing on my thigh. A circle, a cross, a loop. A word.
B. R. A. V. E.
“Who are you calling brave?”
He pauses. “I heard a woman screaming. It’s weird, right? Aunt Iris is used to her husband’s… outbursts.”
“Does he hit her?”
He flinches. “I doubt it. Uncle David has other ways of keeping her and my mother under control.”
The last time I asked a
bout his dad, I got shut down. I keep my questions to myself this time. There will be other days to ask where his dad went. Did I drive him away? I know something had to have happened with my mother. I didn’t just make the Ashers hate me—I made her leave me.
What kind of child does that?
“You’re in your head again.”
I meet his eyes. “Misery loves company.”
That gets a smile out of him. He kisses me softly, but it doesn’t last. We weren’t meant to be soft. So I let him push me onto my back and take away the aching in my bones.
29
Margo
Riley picks me up from Caleb’s house the next morning. She wiggles her eyebrows at me, laughing. “How was your night?”
I glare at her. “I should be asking you the same thing.”
Her smile widens. “Yeah, you definitely should. Damn, Eli is good in bed.”
“Stop.”
“Nope, you asked.” She backs out of his driveway with a shit-eating grin. “He does this thing where he kind of rotates—”
“Riley!” I yell, finally laughing. “I really, really don’t want to hear about your sex life. Not the details, anyway.”
She shrugs. “Okay, okay.”
“I’m glad you’re happy, though.”
She goes quiet.
I tilt my head. “You are happy, though, aren’t you?”
“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.”
“Hmm.” I don’t trust her glossed-over non-answer, but I let it go. I tip my head back and close my eyes. We had mind-numbing sex. Multiple times. One of us woke up in the middle of the night and the other just knew. We needed each other.
Hands reaching toward each other in the darkness.
Our faces so close we shared breath.
“Earth to Margo,” Riley says. “Where’d you go?”
“I want to remember what happened to me,” I whisper, my gaze on the houses flashing past us.
Riley knows the bare bones of the situation. More than that, I guess. But since she didn’t come in until after I’d been gone a while, no one was talking about it. I don’t think anyone in our class actually knows the real story except Caleb. And a piece of my mind I can’t access.
I want to know why he hated me, and how he was able to stop.
She glances over. We’re almost at my house, and she instinctively slows.
