A Protector's Touch: A New Adult College Romance & Romantic Suspense Novel

by Parker Sinclair

  What choice do I have—I mean, really? Either way, he’s going to be put off. Somehow. Someway. At least this way I have some control.

  When I come to standing, the reflection that greets me doesn’t find my choice to be a good one.

  Whoa, your hair. Your shirt. Your…

  “Okay, I get it.” My teeth clamp down on my lip before I can talk to myself some more.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” I sing.

  I need to get myself together, bring all of those pieces of me that were scattered by the raw realization that control and power win over truth. The power of the athletic department, of the soccer team, of Derrick’s money, it all matters more than what one girl has to say about the horrors their prince has bestowed upon her behind closed doors. At least the doors were closed, and no one saw. But that also means that there isn’t any proof.

  But there is.

  The eyes in the mirror freeze, refocus, and then a furrow in my brow smooths to allow my eyes to narrow.

  With newfound realization coming to light, I get my shit together. By shit, I mean my askew hair and crumpled clothes, and my diminished posture. I mean I did just have my face hovering over the sickening fumes of the dorm’s john. With one hand in my hair and the other in my vanity drawer, I manage to make myself look more presentable. But it isn’t the lip gloss or the pin in my hair that makes me feel ready to face Shan; it’s the power glittering behind my eyes—the determination. Of course, brushing my teeth is a close second.

  Reaching for the door, I take one more breath to prepare to see the man I may now be in love with, a man who shows adoration, not ownership.

  “Okay, all good. How are you?” My smile finds him easily. His back is to me while he looks out my window along the wall that lines my bed.

  “I’m good. How about you?” His turn toward me continues into a stride. “Seriously, I’m sorry about just showing up. I know that can be unnerving.”

  He thinks he scared me.

  “I should know better than to leave that door open. I just got a little jumpy.” Why am I saying that? To make him think I’m still that frightened girl who can’t take care of herself? “Wait, that’s not entirely true.”

  Take a deep breath and just tell him.

  “It’s been a long twenty-four hours,” I start. “Last night, on my way to Nia’s, Derrick was waiting for me near my car. Nothing happened, and I’m fine, but then today…”

  “Did he hurt you?” His hands meld into fists by his sides, followed soon after by a quiver in his jaw. He stopped about two feet from me, and I hate the distance, but don’t step closer.

  “No, and today I went to talk to the campus police about what he had done to me, to make a report, but it didn’t go well.”

  “What happened?” The trembling stops and his fists relax, but I can still see a muscle bulging in his jaw. His gorgeous jaw.

  Focus.

  “After being left to wait it out for an hour, I took off. I could tell they were blowing me off.” My anger tries to bubble over again. “When I was leaving, I saw the head coach raging toward the building. They were going to toss anything I said into fire and stomp on the charring remains.”

  Oh my, you didn’t.

  I have zero tact sometimes.

  “Elitist bastards!” Shan seethes. “They think they can control everything and everyone. I’ve seen it firsthand.”

  Way to scrape open old wounds, April. But really, who truly forgets going through something like that?

  “I know you and your family went through something similar, and I hope this isn’t upsetting you.” This time I do force away the distance between us to wrap my fingers around his hands. “But I have another idea. I’m not going to be quiet. I need to warn others about Derrick. If I can save one woman from falling into his trap, then this will all be worth it.”

  His hands squeeze mine, and I look up to see him swallow as if his throat is as dry as a summer desert. His jaw relaxes soon after and he looks down at me with that delicious smile.

  “I’ll help you any way I can, if you’ll let me.”

  “Of course. I just wasn’t sure if you’d want to deal with something like this after everything you’ve been through with your mom.”

  “I want to, for you.” He pulls me closer and my ear touches his chest, his rapid heartbeat pleasing me at first, before shooting doubt into my mind.

  “Are you hungry?” His question is muffled through his chest.

  “Are you here for the food?” I ask with a laugh before breaking from our hug to look into his eyes. Eyes tell the truth.

  His seem to see only you.

  But there was also a crease I haven’t seen before in his grin. Before I can let my mind go to town on my worries, he pulls me off my heels and kisses me with a passion and a need so intense I forget to think or breathe.

  “I’m here for you, and the food. In that order.”

  I swat him playfully.

  “I mean there’s a huge gap between you and the food. Hey.”

  I dance away from him teasingly, turning my back on him and giving a sway to my hips. His answering, chuckling growl prods me to move faster, but not enough to keep him from grabbing ahold of my hips and spinning me toward him again.

  “Food can wait, you know. I don’t see a roommate at the moment.”

  “What roommate?” I giggle, lost in the moment, in his smell and touch.

  He lifts me, carrying me to my bed. As his lips and body lower to mine, any doubts I have are swept away by kisses and caresses of warm fingertips upon my skin.

  ***

  Watching Shan take down three helpings of pasta and meatballs is quite a sight. The first one didn’t seem to faze him as he excused himself for seconds, but halfway through the third, he gave me an adorable boyish grin before twirling his fork again.

  “You aren’t hungry?” he asks between swallows. He has his manners still, despite his destruction of food. “Or isn’t it good?”

  There is that crease again, something tugging back on his face that signals something more.

  “I was, but I think the protein in that shake caught up with me and my eyes were bigger than my stomach.” Or, despite the touching and holding and kissing mere minutes ago, it has only diluted my worries. “What’s your week look like?”

  After running through what we both have going on leading up to spring break, it is clear that neither of us has solid plans on what we are doing for the week. He plans on heading off to see his mom for some portion of it, and I am seeing my family.

  “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “That’s more than okay,” I reply softly, placing my arms on his shoulders and lifting to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for coming to see me. It was a nice surprise.”

  Cue the crease. Followed by the grasping of my waist into a soft, firm hug.

  “I miss you when I’m not with you,” he says.

  “I miss you, too.”

  We say our goodbyes, not having spoken about Derrick during lunch. Shan wanted to know about my plan back in my room, but I think he’s too close to everything that’s happening. I can’t release that gnawing feeling in the back of my mind, and I’ve already brought his dark memories tiptoeing back—or rather raking and clawing back—into the forefront of his mind.

  Really, though, why am I giving myself that much credit?

  It’s more likely that the reality of his past, of his mother’s past, is always hovering there, always tipping him one way or the other. It’s a cycle between pain and regret before settling into some sort of acceptance and gratitude that his mother is alive and that her torture is over. Torture from his own flesh and blood.

  How do you reconcile with that?

  Shame comes fleeting between the pathways of my thoughts. Doesn’t Shan need support and compassion as much as I do, if not more? What’s been happening instead is that he’s been taking care of me, worrying about how I am when his life has been broken in m
ore places than mine. It hasn’t been long since we began this relationship together, so I’m not going to push him to talk about it if he’s not ready. Maybe he doesn’t want to, ever, and maybe he really is okay. Years have passed since his traumatic experience took place, and I’m sure he’s had someone to lean on, right? Of course, I could be wrong, and everything is just as raw and bitter as the night he saved his mom from his sadistic father. And the abuse itself? That had gone on for years. Does time ever allow someone to truly move past it all? Has he healed enough to have my story in his life without dragging it all back?

  The new crease in Shan’s smile flickers to life in my memory, and I stumble on my next thoughts. Could that mean he needs to talk about what happened to him with my new course of action breaking open the wounds, or at least causing their previous trickle to gush open and destroy the haphazard bandage that once held back the tidal wave of hurt? The least I can do is leave him out of what I have to do next. Regardless of how close to the surface his past is to his present, why would I bring him any closer to something that can trigger something more, something worse, or cause him to walk away from us?

  With my decision made, I call Nia instead and we decide to meet up at a little coffee shop, somewhere we’ve never been in case tabs are still being kept. We find our way to the back, by the reading section lined with bookshelves and hidden nooks. How have we not come here before?

  I unfold a couple pieces of paper I kept hidden within the slot of an old folder, where the cardboard of a legal pad would slide in. I’ve never shown them to anyone, but I’ve told Nia and my support group about their contents. Those story-tellings were from pure, rote memory, since I haven’t actually looked at them at all recently. Regardless, here’s my proof. Proof of threats upon paper by Derrick himself, telling me what he would do—to me, to someone else, to even himself—if I didn’t do what he said. Sometimes that meant not breaking up with him, other times that meant not hanging out with any of my guy friends, and sometimes that meant I had to forgive him for what he had done. Though he’s really never admitted to doing anything in the first place, so his idea of forgiving him was by truly telling me to get over it and to stop acting paranoid.

  Derrick would always tell me he was raised to always lie, even if you did something wrong.

  “If somebody comes up to you and asks you about something you did, you lie,” he’d say, “and then you lie again.”

  My ex is the master of lies. At least at first, but then after a time it was very obvious to me when he had been doing something unfaithful, which actually turned out to be nearly all of the time he went out without me. Every time he drank, or a girl showed more interest in him than friendship, he’d pounce. I don’t doubt that every weekend he went out without me, another girl was involved. I know Derrick wanted me to want only him, but to my ex, I was never enough. Perhaps he has a void that just can’t be filled with just one person. Maybe he’s less confident than he portrays. That’s what we’ve learned in group. Abusers control, and they do the exact thing they accuse us of doing because their needs can never be fulfilled. They can never satisfy the attention they didn’t get or longed for in the past, but they keep trying, and at anyone else’s expense.

  “These are awful, April, but I am so glad you kept them.” Nia’s fingers push aside one note and then another as if she’s touching something grotesque or perhaps sharp enough to draw blood. “Are you scared?”

  “I’m done being scared.” This isn’t a lie, so why does my stomach quiver? “Derrick used fear to keep me with him. He’s not going to be able to use it to keep me from telling my story.”

  “You’re so brave, April. I am glad you got away from that monster.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  I look around our new digs, wondering if Derrick has somehow put a tracker on me. I know this isn’t the movies, and just because he was outside my dorm doesn’t mean he’s stalking me, right? Regardless if he’s only done it once, or has been doing it all along, I can’t shake the feeling, which is why I need help. Real help. Legal help.

  After getting home, I call my group leader, Kathy, and sit on my bed taking notes, crying, and at times even cry-laughing while we go over my decision to file a restraining order against Derrick. I go to bed ready for action the next day. But something is nudging at my brain while I wrestle with my covers, trying to find that dark drop-off into sleep.

  Shan.

  When I roll over the next morning, I fumble along my bedside table until I find my phone. The dark screen refuses to reveal any notifications, so I toss it toward the end of the bed and flop my arm over my eyes. I had one missed call from Shan yesterday, which I returned unanswered, and after that—nothing. If we hadn’t been communicating nonstop for over a month, I wouldn’t give it a second thought, but that isn’t the case.

  There has been some talk about meeting each other’s parents over spring break, and I wonder if that is still going to hold true. If I wasn’t so tired last night, the worry may have kept me awake, but my soul was shaken preparing for the day, and nothing was keeping me away.

  What I am going through must remind him so much of his mom and dad, and my broken record keeps thinking that he’d be better off with a girl that isn’t slightly broken. He already has one of those in his life. Of course, this could all be me creating uneasiness in my own head. I have plenty of concerns, but new ones have formed since my time with Shan—ones about losing somebody who is finally true and good and honest, but I’m not going to force it. The last time I did things and didn’t do things for a guy, everything went to hell.

  I need to do this for myself, for my safety, and for the wellbeing of the other girls who will cross Derrick’s path. There’s no doubting he’s a tractor beam. He draws you in with an unbridled confidence topped with a gorgeous face and misleading chivalry. It would have been easier if he was a dick from the beginning. Maybe then things would be different.

  The reality is, if my life, and the steps I am choosing to take, trigger Shan too much, he may be better off finding somebody who doesn’t have some of the same baggage that he and his mother share. Baggage is a lame word, an understatement, to describe what his family is carrying, especially her. I’m flying solo here; she has her kids watching and learning from what unfolded. Luckily that cycle was broken, and Shan didn’t become his own version of his father. What I escaped is nothing like what Nicole endured. In knowing that, I wouldn’t blame him. I knew the first time he laid eyes on that bruise Derrick left around my eye that I reminded him of something horrible. Yet I’ve grown from that girl who took shit. A girl who didn’t stand up for herself and put a guy first.

  So here I am, poised to enter the police station near the courthouse to meet with an officer about filing a restraining order. A female officer is meeting me here—just one of the many things I requested and prepared after my time with Nia and call with Kathy. I already made copies and took photos of everything I have, which is something I’d do no matter what, regardless if I trusted the system or this officer to not lose, tear, or “accidentally” destroy the evidence before copies could be made. This isn’t Shan’s mother’s town, but it is a small college town so there’s a risk in everything I’m about to do—which is why I’m recording this entire conversation because there’s no way I’m letting this go down without a fight.

  Speaking of fights, little did I know Nia snapped a photo of my face when it was covered in painful hues of black and blue. She had intended to show it to me if I thought giving Derrick another chance was a nifty idea. It was hard for her to show me, and equally hard for me to look at, but I’m glad she did, and for the reason she did, even if it meant she had little faith in my conviction at the time. Nia had cause; I have already gone back to Derrick too many times and after too many shitty things.

  “I wasn’t going to show anyone,” she said back in the coffee shop. But she also knew a lot about the female officer I should speak to and what the process would be like for me, so I ha
d a feeling she was going to go for me if I tried to stay with my abusive ex-boyfriend.

  “You’re a good friend, Nia. Smart and sneaky as hell too. Remind me not to cross you.” I laughed before we hugged across the distance between us. I don’t know what I would do without her or the support I get from group.

  My family doesn’t know any of this yet, and I am hoping my report doesn’t wrap them into it more than they need to be. They don’t need to worry about me when they live on the other side of the state. They’d come down here right away if they knew, and even though I love them, they’d try to get me to come back home. Being their sheltered daughter may have been part of why Derrick snuck me into his web of lies in the first place, and I don’t want them to come to this realization the way I have and blame themselves for what’s happened. Though, thinking about it now, it’s something I should talk to them about with my little sister, who’s still living at home. Of course, they’ve never been able to keep Laura as locked down as I was, but maybe that’s because she’s smarter than me, like she always claims she is.

  Officer Karen Simmons is an irreplaceable woman to have on my side. Not only is she knowledgeable on domestic abuse and violence, she’s also brought in a lawyer friend of hers, who is happily meeting with both of us to go over the restraining order paperwork. This is the first step, and hopefully the only one we need, to push Derrick in the right direction before taking it further and pressing charges. I have a good deal of proof that should lead to the courts upholding the restraining order, but it’s a much bigger course of action to take Derrick to court for abuse. The restraining order is my ex’s warning shot across the bow, and, as Karen and her friend Maggie hope, the judge will be recommending counseling for Derrick at the hearing.

  The idea of having to attend a hearing with Derrick causes my throat to close slightly, as if a hot and bitter liquid is gluing the sides together. I move to open a nonexistent top button from my blouse, opting to guide my hands to my jeans instead. A small trail of my fingers’ marks changes the coloring of my pants to a darker blue.