Chapter 22
“You look like shit,” Hannah said when I showed up to Pam’s class on Wednesday. Renee had insisted that I take off Tuesday as well, but I thought it was so she could keep an eye on me.
I sure as hell wasn’t suicidal, but that didn’t seem to matter, no matter how many times I told her. My razor and all the knives in the kitchen and even the aspirin vanished mysteriously, and I suspected her and at least one other member of the house, but I pretended not to notice.
I’d emailed Brett that I couldn’t come for my first day of work because I was sick, and Hannah helped me out by laying it on thick with him as well, so he just said he’d see me next Tuesday.
“Thanks. You’re the first person who’s told me that.”
She pulled a Ziploc bag out of her backpack and held it out to me. “I figured all that candy shouldn’t go to waste.”
“No, thanks,” I said, swallowing a roll of nausea. Candy had never made me sick before, and it was a damn shame, but I couldn’t look at that bag without thinking about Dusty. He had ruined my enjoyment of candy. Honestly, that kind of pissed me off, which made me grab the bag from her and shove a handful into my mouth. No one, not even Dusty, was going to take that away from me.
“That’s my girl,” she said, giving me a huge smile. “And you don’t look that bad.”
“I appreciate that.”
Wednesday was hard to get through. Mostly because I was so distracted with thinking about the past and Dusty and things I’d struggled for so long to repress and put away. People had to repeat themselves and I was totally off in Pam’s class and the look that she gave me wasn’t pretty. It was worse on Thursday and by lunch on Friday I was so ready for the weekend so I could just hole up in my room and not have to fake it anymore.
“Dude, if you want to come over, my roommate is gone for the weekend.” Hannah had been the missing half of my brain, which was exactly what I needed. “We could do a Buffy marathon and just camp out in my room and order food whenever we needed it. Or we could just live on that bucket of candy. I mean, we are college students. It’s kind of expected.”
“That sounds awesome, but I don’t think Renee is letting me out of her sight. But you could bring all of those things to Yellowfield, and we could camp out in the man cave. I’m sure we can rope some of the girls into keeping the guys away. Actually, the guys have been kind of avoiding me, now that I think of it.” Maybe they thought that I hated all men now, and them by association.
“Good. Then we can do just girl time. Who needs ’em?”
“You’re preaching to the choir.” Not that I’d ever been really boy crazy, but I definitely could do without seeing one of them for the foreseeable future.
My birthday was also fast approaching. I hadn’t forgotten about it, really, but it wasn’t at the top of my priority list. Besides, nineteen wasn’t that great of an age anyway. Not like eighteen or twenty-one. No one had mentioned it much at the house, either, apart from that one time when the girls went out shopping. I still hadn’t found where they’d stashed the results of that trip. Probably in the attic, which I wouldn’t go near if someone paid me. I’d found a mutant spider the size of my hand once when I was a kid and had been hiding in one, and as a consequence I avoided them.
Still no word from Dusty. I hadn’t seen him on campus, either, even though I’d had several close calls where I thought I saw him and had to duck behind a bush, but it never turned out to be him anyway.
Hannah and I spent most of the weekend holed up in the man cave watching endless episodes of Buffy and ignoring the calorie count for everything we ate. I’d gone nearly ten minutes without thinking about Dusty when Hannah brought him up.
“I know I’m supposed to be all friend-y and not ask you about what went on with you and Dusty, but it’s been killing me for days. Will you tell me what happened?”
“You’re one to talk about sharing secrets, Hannah,” I said, shoving another handful of salt-and-vinegar chips into my mouth. I really needed to shower, and I’d been wearing the same sweats since Friday night.
“Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Did you—” I said, moving away from her on the couch.
“No, I did not mean to make it sound like that. Despite the fact that I haven’t gotten any action in I-don’t-care-to-remember how long, I don’t swing that way. Do you want to hear this or not?”
“You’d be willing to do that?”
“Sure, it’ll bond us for life or some such shit like that. I’ll go first, if you want.”
Was I ready for this? I hadn’t told a single person.
“Sure.”
She sat up and turned the television volume down.
“So you know I’ve got these awesome burns? Well, the truth is that my brother tried to set me on fire when we were kids. I was four at the time and he was eight, and we were out in the backyard. He’d always had a thing for fire, and had nearly burned the house down several times, but no matter how many times Mom hid the matches, he always seemed to find them. Aaron is smart. Like, really smart. Like, hack-into-a-government-database-with-one-hand-tied-behind-his-back smart. Anyway, so he told me to stand real still. I had no idea what the hell was going on, except he told me that he was going to give me candy if I stood real still. I just remember the snap as he struck the match on the box and the look on his face as he threw it at me.”
I couldn’t even breathe.
“From there things get a little fuzzy, but I think I somehow remembered something from one of those kids’ specials about stopping, dropping and rolling, so that’s what I did, and it saved my life. My mom ran out when she heard me screaming and stopped Aaron from completely lighting me up. A trip and a long stay in the hospital and tons of skin grafts and surgeries later and here I am.” She gave me a smile, but it was dark. Haunted.
My mouth was so dry I had to take a drink of water before I could say anything.
“What happened to him?”
Hannah grabbed her can of soda and I saw her hand shaking.
“They put him in a mental health facility, doped him up. He’s still there. It was either that or jail, and my parents chose that. He’s of age now, but he’s still too much of a danger to be let out. So, that’s my story. Now show me yours.”
She flipped so quickly that I couldn’t follow. I couldn’t process what she’d told me. Once again, it was something that had been done to her. Something she’d had absolutely no control over. Hannah was a victim; I’d created one.
“I...I don’t know if I can, Hannah. I haven’t told anyone.”
She got up and sat on her knees right in front of me.
“Look, we all have terrible shit in our lives. Every single person on this planet at some time or another has had a secret they would rather die than share. It’s part of being human, of being alive. Stuff happens and we can’t deal with it. But what I’ve learned is that we are stronger than what happens to us. You can’t let it define you. The fucked-up parts of you are just that. Parts. But I understand if you’re not ready. It took me a long time and a lot of therapy to be able to even remember what happened. I blocked it out for a long time.”
My eyes skimmed over the scars on her face and neck and arm and I couldn’t even imagine the horror she’d been through.
“I killed someone,” I blurted out. To her credit, Hannah didn’t gasp like I expected her to. Her eyes went wide for a second and she shook her head.
“Okay, then. I think I’m going to need some details before I process this.” She got up and sat back down on the couch beside me. “Because that can mean a lot of things.”
I took the deepest breath of my life and started from the beginning. How I’d met Nathan randomly at a party that I’d gone to in order to satisfy my stupid friends, and how we’d formed an odd friendship and how he’d started making me open my eyes to the world and music and having fun and then how I’d begged him to go to the concert, and then drive me home, and how I’d called him and begged him to come get me.
“He was just hanging up with me when it happened. They figured he must have been looking down at the phone, or have dropped it, or something. He never saw the tractor-trailer truck, and that was it. Nathan is dead because of me.”
Saying the words had been as hard as slicing into my soul and bleeding them out, word by word, drop by drop. Whoever said the truth was freeing had never held a secret like this. Somewhere around the middle of my story, I’d started crying again, but I was kind of used to it by now. It was a bit like being a leaky faucet.
I tried to turn my tears off and waited for Hannah to process.
“So you think you’re the reason Nathan hit that truck.”
“I am the reason, Hannah. He never would have been on that road at that time, and he wouldn’t have been distracted. I’m responsible for all of it.”
“You. Are. Mother. Fucking. Crazy,” she said before she dived at me, putting her arms around me and pulling me close in a rib-crushing hug. “How in the hell have you convinced yourself that it’s your fault?”
See? That was my exact fear. That whoever I told would try to convince me that it wasn’t. That it was just an accident and no one’s fault, etc. No. I wouldn’t go for that. People had used that excuse for thousands of years to get themselves off the hook for the horrible things they’d done. Not me.
Hannah wouldn’t let go of me, and I was having trouble breathing.
“You need to let go,” I sort of gasped.
“Oh, sorry.” She pulled back, but kept her hands on my shoulders. I couldn’t look at her.
“So there, I told you. Now you can get off my back about it.”
I tried to get up, but she wouldn’t let me.
“No way. You are not going anywhere. You’ve carried this alone for too long, and I’m not going to let you carry it a second longer. What happened was an act of God or a shitty day or a whole host of things. You’re one of those people, Jos, who can’t stand not having an explanation for something, a reason. There was no reason for this. There wasn’t a reason for my fucking brother to set me on fire.” She couldn’t compare the circumstances. They just weren’t the same. I wrenched myself free from her grip.
“I knew this would happen if I told someone. I knew they would try to talk me out of feeling bad, but I don’t want to stop feeling bad. He was a wonderful person and he didn’t deserve to die. The world is a worse-off place without him, and I’m the one that caused that. I won’t let you take the pain that I should be feeling away from me. If I don’t have pain that he’s gone, then who will?”
“I don’t know where you got such fucked-up logic from, but I’m going to stop you right there, because this is crazy. Bat-shit crazy.” She tried to grab my shoulders, probably to shake me, but I backed away.
“Great, now you think I’m crazy. Thanks so much, Hannah. I feel so much better that I finally told you.” I went for the stairs, because it was the only escape down here.
She blocked my exit. Damn, her reflexes were good.
“I told you that it took a lot of therapy for me to get where I am, and part of that very expensive therapy was letting go of my anger toward my brother. I had to let it go or I would never be free of him and what had happened. I’m not saying I’m the poster child for letting go, or that I’m even okay, but the one thing I do know is that you have to let go of this guilt, Jos. It’s going to kill you, and I don’t think Nathan would have wanted that.”
I exploded.
“How the fuck do you know what he would have wanted? You didn’t know him. No one will ever get to know him again.” My yelling brought the pounding of footsteps, and the door at the top of the stairs opened.
“What’s wrong?” Renee came rushing down, with everyone else just behind her.
“Why can’t you all leave me the fuck alone?! I just want you all to stop trying to save me, because I don’t want to be fucking saved, okay?! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” I had nowhere else to go, so I went for my bedroom, managing to get the door shut and locked before they could catch me. I waited for someone to bang the door down, but it didn’t happen. I waited and heard quiet talking and people going back up the stairs.
Then...silence. The door shut and I waited for someone to come and try to talk to me through the door. Nothing. I moved to the crack between the door and the frame and listened, just to make sure. Nope, it was quiet.
Wow. That was the first time someone had listened to me. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and tried not to fall further apart. I’d cried so much already, been in so much pain, but this, this was the worst.
This was what was below rock bottom, whatever they called that. They probably didn’t have a name for it.
* * *
The next few hours involved me crying more tears than I knew were possible and going through an entire box of tissues as I sat on the floor of my bedroom and wondered what the fuck I was going to do. I went through several options, but none of them seemed viable.
What I wanted, what I really wanted, was to go to a new place. Just cut my losses and pick up and leave. Everything, including my family. Invent a new person to be, a new person that people wouldn’t ask questions about. It’s what a girl in a movie would do. I’d have to cut and/or dye my hair, though, and get completely different clothes for it to work.
I was delusional. I couldn’t start over, because they wouldn’t let me. Hannah had said she was jealous of how many people cared about me, but I’d willingly hand them over to her. She needed it more than I did. How horrible it was, what had happened to her.
When I was finally able to get myself to move, I went to my computer and put Coldplay’s “The Scientist” on repeat. My below-rock-bottom moment needed a sound track. I really had to pee, which was insane, given how much water I’d already let out of my body through my tears, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t someone camped outside my door. After listening for a little while for the smallest sound, I unlocked the door and poked my head out.
Empty. I breathed a tiny sigh of relief and scurried to the bathroom in case they were listening and waiting for me to emerge from my room to attack me. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I thought I was home free when I opened the door of the bathroom, but someone got up from the couch. He’d been so freaking quiet I had no idea how long he’d been there.
“Dusty.” I breathed his name and it was both a blessing and a curse at the same time.
“Hey, Red. We need to talk. I know you don’t want to hear what I have to say, but I think I can change your mind.”
“Did Renee send you down here to drag me out so they can do whatever they’re plotting to do with me?” The mind reeled with possibilities. I bet she wouldn’t be above forcing me to go to a facility. I’d been threatened with that more times than I could count, but this time they might actually be able to do it, even though I was of age.
“No, I came on my own. She wasn’t going to let me in the house, but Hunter convinced her that I was the only one who could get through to you. Would you just listen? You don’t have to do anything else. Just listen.”
“Dusty—”
He put up his hands, like I was holding him at gunpoint.
“Just wait here. I have to get something. I swear, I’ll be right back. Yes, you could just go in your room and lock the door and I will respect that, this time, but I beg you. Please, Joscelyn.” He was brave to come near the house, what with Renee on the warpath and a target on his back.
“Okay.” Moving slowly from behind the couch, he kept facing me, probably so I didn’t make any sudden movements. He even walked up the stairs backward and had to grope for the door handle. If I wasn’t so far from laughing, I might have found it funny.
For a split second, I considered going into my room and locking the door, just to get this over with, but something told me he’d be back and he wouldn’t give up.
I heard voices, and I wondered for a moment if he’d set me up, and they were going to come storming down the stairs, all dressed in riot gear. My suspicions turned out to be nothing more than that when Dusty slowly opened the door and came back down the stairs, cradling something to his chest with one hand. A tiny sound told me that it was Napoleon.
“So you think you’re going to use your adorable kitten to get me to listen to you, huh?” Napoleon poked his sleepy head out from the folds of Dusty’s sleeve. Why did he have to be so freaking sweet?
“I play dirty. Here.” He held Napoleon out to me, and Napoleon protested at being moved. “It was a job to get him away from the ladies upstairs, I’ll tell you that much. I’m pretty sure this house is going to be full of kittens next week.” I had no choice but to take hold of Napoleon. I put him up to my face and he snuggled under my chin and started purring. This was the key to world peace, I swear. Kittens. Start dropping those in the Middle East and problems solved.
“Would you like to sit?” Dusty gestured to the couch as if he was an old-time gentleman inviting me into his parlor for tea. I nodded and went to sit on the couch, still holding the sweet Napoleon, who was playing with my hair.
“Don’t eat that,” I said, taking some of it out of his mouth.
Dusty made sure he had quite a bit of distance between us, but I remembered how that had gone last time we’d been on this couch. This time, though, there would be no kissing, even if I wanted to.
“Joscelyn?”
I looked up from the adorable kitten to meet Dusty’s hypnotic eyes. Two very different things, but equally captivating.
“Hannah shared with me what you told her earlier. About...about Nate.” His voice broke a little on Nathan’s name. “And it’s just not true, Jos. It’s not.”
“I can’t believe she told you,” I said, looking back at the kitten because it didn’t hurt as much as looking at Dusty.
“Don’t be mad at her.”
“I’m not mad at her.” I wasn’t really mad anymore. I’d gotten to that place where you just don’t feel anything. It was kind of nice. Emotional purgatory. “So go ahead—talk.”
“It’s not your fault that Nate died. It’s mine.”
“Yeah, you said that.” I looked up from the kitten and wished I hadn’t. Dusty was crying, and in the second it took for me to realize he was crying, I snapped out of my emotional purgatory from a moment earlier.
“Yes, I did. He was coming to get me from my parents’, and I was on the phone with him just before it happened. If he wouldn’t have brought me to Maine from the concert, he wouldn’t have been on that highway.”
With that, I went back to petting the kitten as tears rolled down Dusty’s face and splashed on his shirt. He didn’t bother to wipe them, which made it worse, somehow.
“Joscelyn. He was coming to get me. I’d gotten arrested, again, for drinking underage. The charges were later dropped, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I asked him to come and bail me out, and that’s why he was on that highway. To save my stupid ass, again. I can’t count how many times he drove home for me, and...” The tears finally became too much and he sobbed, leaning toward me.
“How could you blame yourself, you beautiful girl? How could you ever think you were responsible?”
“How could you?” I said, turning it around on him. “I’m carrying this blame. Not you. It’s mine, and mine alone.”
He moved closer to me and seized my hands.
“No. You will not carry this alone. It’s not yours to carry.” He let go of my hands and held my face, and I couldn’t breathe. Napoleon protested at being squished, so I moved him.
“It’s not yours,” I countered.
“Look, we can play this game all night, or you could let me kiss you and we can put the blame aside for a little while. I need to show you how much I missed you.” He didn’t wait for an invitation and his lips descended on mine. He tasted salty from the tears, but behind that was the familiar Dusty taste that I had missed, more than I would ever admit to him.
“Kitten,” I said as I broke away from him for just a second. Dusty picked Napoleon up and set him on the floor, where he cried. “Take him upstairs?” Dusty nodded against my mouth.
“Be right back.” He scooped up the now-grumpy kitten and took the stairs two at a time. I lay back on the couch and ran my hand through my hair.
What was I doing? I shouldn’t be kissing Dusty, no matter how good it felt and how much I wanted to. It was wrong. We were wrong together. It would never work. There would always be something between us, and it might not be a problem now, but down the road it would separate us. It would.
Dusty came back and straddled me.
“Where were we?”
I put my hand on his chest.
“I can’t.”
He made a frustrated sound and shook his head.
“Yes, you can, and you want to.”
Yes on both counts.
“We shouldn’t. We shouldn’t start, because then this will turn into something and I can’t let it. I can’t let this be something, because I don’t want to lose it. It’s better not to start at all than to get into it and then have it gone. I couldn’t deal with you being gone, Dusty.”
“You’re not going to lose me.”
“I never thought I was going to lose Nathan. Did he ever tell you about me?”
“Yes. I didn’t know it was you, though. He always called you Jossy but I didn’t make the connection. And he never really told me much about you. Just that you’d become friends and that you had terrible taste in music that he was bound and determined to change.”
I almost smiled, remembering. “He did say that. A lot.”
“Did you love him? Is that why?”
I put my other hand on his chest.
“No, I didn’t love him in the way you’re asking. I loved him like the older brother I always wanted, but never had. I have a lot of siblings, but I’m not very close with any of them. They tend to come and go when my parents get married and divorced. I’ve had so many people walk in and out of my life, and he was one of the only people I was sure would stay, would always be there, and now he’s gone and it’s my fault and I can’t stand it if I lose you, too. I can’t, Dusty, because I love you. I love you so much and I can’t lose you, too. I can’t.” This time I was the one who reached for the kiss, and he met me halfway.
“I don’t want to lose you, either, but neither of us is going anywhere, right now, at this moment, so we should enjoy it.”
“Live the day,” I said, touching the sides of his face. He felt so good.
“Yeah, Nate used to say that.”
“I know.”
“So let’s live, Joscelyn. Right now.”
So I brought his mouth back to mine, and our lips had another joyous reunion. Now it was time for our bodies to be introduced. The kiss got more intense, and he pressed himself against me, and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I wanted to give myself to him, completely.
“Take me to the bedroom?” I said. No second-guessing.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Live a little with me.”
“Okay, Red.” He picked me up and carried me to my bedroom. I didn’t think about if it was a bad decision or not, or second-guess the intelligence of doing this now, when I was so emotionally fucked. It was exhausting doing all that thinking. Just like when I gave myself up to the melody of an amazing song, I wanted to give my body up to this amazing guy. No, not give it to him, share it with him.
“The Scientist” was still playing, so I shut my computer and the music stopped and only the sound of our breathing filled the room. Dusty kissed my lips and then down my neck. It was a little more frantic this time, as he couldn’t get enough of me. Well, the feeling was mutual. I nearly tore his shirt off in my haste to get him undressed.
“Easy, Red,” he said as it got caught on his head and he had to help me pull it the rest of the way off. I traced the tattoo on his arm.
“‘Little brother.’ Nate had one that said ‘older brother.’ But you probably knew that.”
“I do now,” I said, kissing the tattoo before going back to his lips, which became more and more demanding as his tongue plunged into my mouth, as if he was trying to taste my soul. I let myself go, and he removed my shirt and then my bra with expert hands.
“One, two, three, four,” he said kissing from my cheek down my neck and in between my breasts. “Five, six, seven...”
“What are you doing?” It came out as a semimoan as his tongue licked one of my nipples.
“Counting your freckles. It might take a while. Eight, nine, ten—” I grasped his head as he took one of my nipples into his mouth and sucked on it. He stopped counting as he ravaged me with his mouth, and I wrapped my legs around him and made incoherent sounds, begging him for more.
He moved to the other breast, making sure it got just as much attention, which was very considerate. I nearly lost my mind when, at the same time, he slipped his hand under the waistband of my sweatpants and stroked me there, as well. He had done this before, and had learned well, but I wasn’t going to ask. Who really cared?
“Fuck,” I moaned in the grip of building pleasure. He kissed down my stomach, his hand still working, and he dipped his tongue into my belly button. I had no idea how sensitive that area of my body was until now.
All I could do was hold on as he scooted my sweatpants lower until I was completely exposed. He still had his pants on, which was hardly fair, but I couldn’t do anything about it as his mouth joined his hand and lights exploded in my head and I thought I was going to die with the beauty and intensity of it.
And then he started humming, his mouth and lips vibrating against me in a way that made me cry out. I thought I recognized the tune, but shortly later my brain gave itself over and I lost myself to him and his mouth and the sweet ecstasy. He hummed and kissed his way to my inner thighs, which trembled as I felt another one coming, only seconds after the first. This really wasn’t fair at all.
I let go of his head and reached down, but his pants were well out of my reach. I made a little sound of protest and the humming cut off.
“What’s wrong?” His head came up and his hand stilled. I was granted a momentary reprieve.
“It’s not fair. I want to touch you, too.” I tried to drag him up my body, but he wouldn’t let me.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, as he slipped a finger inside me and dipped his head back down. “But I’m busy right now.” With every word he moved his finger in and out and moved his tongue, as well. He added another finger and I was completely helpless again as I burst into a million shards of glittering pleasure.
Dusty took me to the edge again, merciless in his attack with both mouth and fingers until I was quivering and unable to move.
“Now you may touch me,” he said, sliding up my still-heaving body. My hands were a little shaky at first as I tried to undo his belt and then went for his zipper. Now it was his turn to moan as I slid his pants and boxers down, finally getting to touch him everywhere.
I’d always been scared of this part, of the actual sex part. What if it hurt too much? What if I did something wrong? What if I was really bad at it? When I’d been with Matt, those things had always run through my head, but in this moment with Dusty, as I stroked him and heard him growl and say my name, I didn’t think of any of those things.
I kissed my way down his chest and saw that he was having trouble keeping himself above me. I smiled to myself as I took him into my mouth, and he was the one making incoherent sounds. I had no idea what I was doing, but he seemed to like it, so I started humming and he nearly collapsed on me.
“Jesus, Red. You can’t do that when I’m above you,” he said, putting a hand in my hair and pulling my head away. “Sometime I’ll let you do that again, but right now, I just want to get inside you. Do you have something?”
“I live with the queen of safe sex,” I said, pointing to my nightstand. “Second drawer in the back.” He reached over me, and I started stroking him again, up and down, twisting my hand a little.
“I can’t even remember my own name right now,” he said, fumbling for the box and moving so he was beside me.
“Are those okay? I don’t really know what you’d like.” Now was not the time to start babbling, Jos.
He kissed me, and I took that as a “shut up, Jos” as he pulled one out and tore the package open.
“I can do it,” I said, taking it from him. “Renee taught me how. That’s not as weird as it sounds,” I said as I rolled it on and he closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. I got it on in one try. Renee would be proud. Or maybe not. I should probably stop thinking about her.
“Are you ready?” He moved so he was above me. “Or if you wanted to do it another way, we could—” I stopped his question by grabbing him and moving my hips up. He slid inside me and I prepared for massive amounts of pain.
“Did I hurt you?” he said, once he was fully inside me.
“No,” I lied. It was more of a dull ripping feeling, as opposed to a stabbing pain. I tried to let my body get used to having him inside me. “Just give me a second.” He held himself so, so still, and I let myself fall into his eyes and get trapped there.
“I love you,” I said, tilting my face up for a kiss. His head came down and our lips met.
“I love you, Red.” I wrapped my legs around him and shifted my hips back, and he started moving. It hurt a little less the second time, and a little less, and then I could feel myself building again, the two sensations of pleasure and pain mixing together and overtaking me. I rocked my hips up to meet him as he increased his speed, hell-bent on destroying both of us. It got rougher and I welcomed it, my fingernails digging into his shoulders and my voice asking him for more.
Finally, he shuddered above me and fell against me, being careful not to crush me. Both of our chests heaved and we were slick with sweat. He kissed my lips and tried to pull out, but I grabbed his butt to stop him.
“Stay with me.”
He kissed my nose and moved my hair out of my face and then pulled me close. We were as connected as two people could possibly be, and in that moment of clarity, I realized that it didn’t matter. Whose fault it was about Nathan. Dusty and I were both alive, and he wasn’t.
We were getting to do all the things he wouldn’t. But that was okay. He always told me I needed to find a guy who appreciated me, who knew how lucky he was to have me. Little did he know it would be his brother. Or maybe he did know.
I wasn’t a big believer in anything, but this would be just the kind of thing Nathan would have dreamed up. Bringing us together, but making us work for it first. The thought of telling him that I had finally found someone, and the look on his face made me start laughing. Dusty finally pulled out because he had to, but he didn’t move away from me just yet.
“What are you laughing about, Red?”
“I’m just thinking that Nathan is somewhere laughing at the two of us for being idiots.”
That made his face split into a smile so wide I thought it was going to break his face.
“You’re right. This is exactly the kind of thing he would pull. I know he definitely wouldn’t have set you up with me in my before state.”
“Ditto,” I said, shifting a little and wincing.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Dusty said, stroking my arm.
I gave him a kiss. “I’ll live.”
“And live, and live, and live.” He tapped his finger on my shoulder and I realized two things at once.
One, that everyone in the house had probably heard us, and two, that I was bleeding. Either one of those things was enough to turn me into a human stoplight, but both made me want to die.
“Oh, my God.”
“What? What is it?” Dusty was on the alert.
“I need to go and take care of something,” I said, trying to get up so he wouldn’t see the results of what we’d just done, but he stopped me and then looked down.
“Oh, Red. It’s okay. Why don’t you go wash up and I’ll take care of this?”
“It’s not just that, Dusty. This room isn’t soundproof.” I pointed to the ceiling and he looked up.
“I completely and totally forgot we weren’t the only two people in the world. Well, it was nice knowing you. Renee is probably going to kill me now and chop my body into little equal pieces and scatter them everywhere so no one will ever find me.”
I gingerly climbed over Dusty and grabbed the first thing I found to cover myself with, which turned out to be his shirt.
“Oh, this is bad, bad, bad.” I went to open the door, but Dusty stopped me with a hand on my waist.
“Joscelyn, the only bad thing here is that I can’t take you back to bed right now because I want to. I wish there were some way that we could just stay in bed together forever and never leave this room. I wish we could make these little moments, right here, right now, last forever.”
I turned in his arms.
“Well, I can make this last a little longer. Come shower with me?” His hands dipped under the shirt, eager to get me naked again.
“I would love to. Almost as much as I love you.” He pressed me against the door.
“I can’t believe no one has come down to drag your ass upstairs for a good old-fashioned beat down.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s coming. So, if these are my last moments, I want to spend them naked with you.” He growled and swept me into his arms and I squealed as he carried me toward the shower.
* * *
“So. You have deflowered my sister,” Renee said, pacing in front of us. Dusty and I were on the couch, hand in hand.
“Renee!” I said, my face going scarlet.
She held her hand up for silence.
After the lovely shower with Dusty, we’d gone back to my room and gotten dressed to face the judge, jury and executioner.
When we’d emerged from the cave, the house had been quiet, but I could hear people talking on the second floor.
“Maybe they gave us some privacy?” I’d said, shocked.
“Or maybe they’re lying in wait,” Dusty had said behind me. “Let me go first.”
He’d sneaked up the stairs, with me right behind him, and we’d found everyone in Darah’s room, except for Mase and Hunter, playing with Napoleon.
The moment Renee looked up and saw me and Dusty, she’d grabbed both of our arms and dragged us downstairs, and here we were. Getting reamed out by the best.
To his credit, Dusty hadn’t run away, which was a plus. It was nice to have someone to hold on to while Renee was on the warpath, even if I was more scared for him than I was for myself.
“So,” she said, pivoting on her heel. “So.”
I waited for her to say something else.
“Did you use protection?” Of course that was her first question.
“Yes,” I said, beating Dusty to the answer. “Condoms and the pill.”
Renee narrowed her eyes and glared at Dusty.
“It’s true,” he said, his hand holding mine a little tight. I almost laughed. The confident Dusty Sharp was scared of my sister. Scared shitless.
“How long have you been planning this?”
I started to answer, but Renee turned the glare on me.
“I want to hear it from him.”
I shut my mouth and looked at Dusty.
“Honestly? I’ve been trying to be with your sister since the first time I saw her. Right about the same time I realized that I loved her.”
Renee nodded and started pacing again.
“You fell in love with me at first sight? Really?” I’d heard of it happening, but always just chalked it up to lust instead of love.
He brought our joined hands to his mouth and kissed them.
“Of course. I told you, it was like I met you and I knew. Took myself a long time to realize it, though. But I told you. It was impossible not to fall for you.” He was so sure of himself, spoke as if it was such an easy thing to say.
Renee started pacing again.
“And how am I supposed to believe that? I mean, it sounds like a really good line to feed a vulnerable girl to get in her pants.”
“If all I wanted was to get in her pants, I would have given up a long time ago. Your sister is...” I waited.
“Stubborn,” he supplied with a grin as he flicked some of my hair off my shoulder. “Comes with the hair, I think. Or maybe it’s genetic.” He turned and smiled at Renee, and she faltered for a second. Ha.
She cleared her throat and tried to collect herself for the next line of attack.
“Be that as it may, I am still not very happy about this.” I started to say something about how I was of age and could make my own damn decisions and after everything Dusty and I had been through to find each other, I wasn’t going to let her stop us, but she kept going and ignored me.
“I trusted you to keep an eye on her. Just an eye, not your entire body. And I’m still not sure if I trust you, and I want to know what happened between you, but...” Dusty and I waited with bated breath. Whatever that means. I’d never understood the phrase before, but this certainly felt like it.
“I can’t stop you from seeing each other. You’re Hunter’s friend, and this is Hunter’s house and you’re going to be here anyway. I also know that if I try to keep you apart you’ll come together quicker than you can say ‘star-crossed lovers.’” I started celebrating in my head, but I knew it was probably too good to be true.
“BUT,” Renee said, as if she sensed my precelebration. She stood in front of Dusty and leaned down until their faces were level.
“There will be rules, and I will get everyone else in this house to enforce them. You will have her home at a reasonable hour. You will not take her anywhere I would not want her to be. You will never, ever, EVER hurt her, because I will come after you and I will make your death slow and painful. Got it?” By the time she was done, their faces were so close I wanted to tell Renee to back it up.
“I am sufficiently terrified,” Dusty said. “So yes, I’ve got it.” He looked away from Renee and at me.
“You okay with those terms, Red?”
“I will agree to them on one condition,” I said, holding one finger up. Renee finally stopped trying to stare Dusty into submission.
“You will be nice to my boyfriend and not threaten him anymore. Got it?”
Renee thought about that for a second, and I could see her fuming.
“Deal.”
“Deal,” I said, sticking out my hand, and we shook on it.
“Boyfriend, huh?” Dusty said. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss, which was either a very brave or very stupid thing to do, seeing as how Renee was within slapping distance.
I grinned and kissed him back, and I heard her making protesting noises.
“You said you’d be nice.” I pulled away from Dusty long enough to say that, and then went back to his lips.
“I can be nice,” Renee muttered under her breath.
“Can we come down now? The suspense is killing us,” Taylor called from upstairs, and Dusty broke the kiss.
“Come down and meet my boyfriend,” I called, and I heard a little exclamation of glee that was probably from Taylor.
She and Darah came down the stairs with Napoleon, who was meowing because of all the excitement. Paul came after them and went right for Renee, putting his hands on her shoulders and rubbing them.
“Yay, everyone is alive,” Taylor said. “Dare and I were getting worried.” She held Napoleon up like Simba in The Lion King and he didn’t seem too happy about it.
“Oh, buddy, it’s okay.” Dusty reached for him and Taylor passed the kitten over. The second Dusty had him, Napoleon started purring.
“Nice job with the kitten,” Renee said. “Well played.”
“Thank you,” Dusty said, giving Napoleon a kiss on his tiny head. Dead, I was dead. “He’s irresistible. Just like you, Red.”
Renee groaned, and Darah and Taylor said, “aww,” simultaneously. Well, you couldn’t win them all.
“Straighten up and fly right, Ne,” I said as I kissed my boyfriend.