THE NEXT MORNING, the sound of my own pained groaning wakes me from a restless sleep. Every muscle in my body aches like it’s been run over while I slept, and when I put pressure on my hands to lift myself off the bed, I inhale a sharp gasp and fall back against the mattress. Tears sting my eyes when I lift my wrists in front of my face and see the angry red and purple bruising marring my olive skin.
“Dee?” Rowan calls from the other side of my closed door. “Are you alright?”
Last night, she tried to crawl in next to me because she thought I needed the comfort, but what I really needed was to be alone. I told her I wanted to sleep by myself, and she reluctantly left my room to sleep in her own bed. I’m not sure which was worse about last night—having Cody put his hands all over me or breaking down in the shower afterward like some kind of helpless victim.
Rowan jiggles the knob. “Dee, are you okay?”
I clear the gravel from my throat. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
A long moment of silence passes, and I know she’s still lingering behind the door. “I’m going to make breakfast. You want anything?”
She’s in for a surprise when she opens the fridge and finds nothing but expired butter and a jar full of pickle juice. “No,” I answer, “I’m going back to bed.” I hesitate and then add, “You should go back to Adam’s. I might be out for a while.”
Rowan’s voice is sad and careful when she says, “Dee . . . can I come in for a minute?”
I attempt to run my fingers through my hair in a nervous gesture, but end up hissing through my teeth when lightning pain reminds me of the bruising. “I’m tired, Ro. I’ll call you, okay?”
I think I hear her sigh against the crack in my door; then she says with stubborn insistence, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I ignore her when she knocks on the door later to offer me lunch. I ignore her when she recruits Leti to try to talk me out of my room. I ignore her when she whines, threatens, and tries to bribe me with strawberry pancakes and chocolate ice cream. And I fall asleep ignoring the near constant texts and calls I receive from Joel.
The next morning, his voice is the one that wakes me.
“Dee, open up.” His pounding on my door causes me to bolt upright, putting all of my weight on my bruised-to-hell wrists.
“Fuck!” I cradle my arms in my lap and grit my teeth.
“I’m not playing games, Dee! Peach says you haven’t eaten anything. I brought you IHOP and you’re going to come out here and eat it.”
“Go away,” I growl. Joel is the last person in the world I want to see right now. Making a fucking fool of myself wasn’t what I wanted to do to win his attention.
“Are you seriously going to sit in there feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not the girl I know!”
“YOU DON’T KNOW ME.”
“Last chance,” he says.
“Or what?” I challenge.
I hear muffled voices and then Joel saying, “Fuck yes I’m going to break this door down. What’s she going to do, starve herself?” Speaking to me, he threatens, “One.”
I glare at my closed door, not falling for his bullshit.
“Two.”
“Get bent, Joel!”
“Three.”
A satisfied smile tugs at my lips when nothing happens, but then Joel bursts through my door in a flurry of limbs and splintered wood.
“What the hell!” I shriek, eyes wide as he falls to the floor yowling in pain. I launch off my bed and hover over all six-foot-one of him writhing on the floor. He’s cradling his shoulder in his hand and stringing curse words together in arrangements I’ve never heard before. His knuckles are wrapped in bandages and his face is a mask of pain.
“I fucking dislocated my shoulder, goddamn it!” he curses. Rowan sidles next to me and Leti next to her.
“Did you seriously dislocate your shoulder?” Rowan asks.
Leti shakes his head with pity. “I told you not to do it.”
“No,” Joel snaps, “I’m joking, Peach. I just like rolling around on the floor for no fucking reason!”
She kicks him in the shin, and I burst out laughing. I’m still pissed as hell at him, but I can’t help laughing when he’s lying on the floor, bandaged and bruised with a dislocated shoulder, and my best friend is kicking him while he’s down. He’s a hot mess.
“I’m glad you find this so funny,” he growls up at me.
“I didn’t ask you to come over here.”
“Or to break down the door,” Leti adds.
“OR to break down the door.”
Joel sits up and glares at me until he sees my wrists. “Shit . . . Dee . . .”
Rowan and Leti follow his gaze and inhale sharp breaths, and I throw my hands behind my back to hide them from view. “It’s not a big deal. Stop staring at me like that.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t come out?” Rowan asks. Since there’s a half bathroom attached to my room, I didn’t have to see her at all yesterday, despite her multiple attempts to lure me out. And this morning, I vaguely remember her trying to wake me up to go to school, but I’m pretty sure I told her that my professors could go eat dicks.
“I just didn’t feel like it. God.”
Rowan steps toward me like she wants to hug me, pauses, and finishes her assault by throwing her arms around my neck. Since my wrists are out of commission, I don’t attempt to push her away.
“I’m fine,” I insist, and Leti’s hand lands on my shoulder, his gaze full of pity that makes me roll my eyes.
“You know who’s not fine?” Joel asks. “The guy on the floor with the dislocated shoulder. Is anyone going to help me up and take me to the hospital?”
“Why would we do that when there’s IHOP waiting to be eaten?” I ask, and Rowan chuckles before releasing me and teaming with Leti to lift him up.
IN THE WAITING room of the hospital, I’m sitting between Joel and Rowan with Leti on Rowan’s other side. My legs are crossed and there’s a plate of pancakes on my lap that is very quickly turning into a plate of just syrup. I offered Rowan a bite, but she said the scent of antiseptic stole her appetite. It probably would have stolen mine too if my stomach didn’t feel like it was trying to eat itself.
“What happened to your hands?” I ask Joel, too curious to keep my thoughts to myself.
He glances at Rowan, and I catch her staring at the floor. She already knows, but whatever happened, she’s kept it from me.
“Cody’s face,” Joel answers, his tone loaded with latent aggression I’m finally beginning to feel.
“Did you make him sorry?” I ask, and Leti answers before anyone else has a chance to.
“He nearly killed him.” When I lean forward to search Leti’s expression, he adds, “I went out to show Mark the bus . . . Shawn and Mike had to carry Cody out. He looked like Rocky Balboa decided to use his face as a punching bag.”
“He wouldn’t stop talking,” Joel explains unapologetically.
I find myself gently unwrapping the bandages from his hands, and Joel watches me do it, not pulling away from me. I frown when I see the angry red scratches and taped stitches. “You didn’t have to do that . . .”
“Yeah, I did,” he says matter-of-factly.
I release my tender hold on his hands and withdraw my attention, not sure how to feel about what Joel did for me. I carve off more pancakes and push them into my mouth, trying to make sense of it. What could he possibly have to gain from getting involved?
A nurse comes to retrieve Joel with her eyes buried in a clipboard, but when they lift, the friendly smile falls from her face. With his mohawk, torn jeans, and battered knuckles, he’s a disheveled mess. He’s also the epitome of a bad boy, and I’m trying to ignore the fact that he’s hot as hell.
She clears her throat. “Joel Gibbon?”
Joel nods his head in my direction. “Take her first.”
I cough around a throatful of pancakes. The nurse eyes me until her gaze lands on my wrists, and an embarrassed flame ignites beneath my skin.
“I’m fine,” I growl at Joel under my breath.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, standing up and waiting for me with agitated impatience. “Waiting on you, Deandra.”
I narrow my eyes and stand up, and Rowan and Leti are quick to follow my lead, with Joel taking up the rear. The four of us enter a curtained ER cubicle, where I’m prescribed pain medication for my bruised wrists and given a handful of domestic abuse pamphlets, and Joel is lectured about busting through doors with his shoulders and breaking faces with his fists. He’s taken for X-rays that determine his shoulder is just badly bruised, and then he’s prescribed his own pain medication, which we pick up on our way back to my apartment.
I ignore him as we climb the stairs of my apartment building and navigate the hallways to my front door. Once inside, I attempt to head straight to my room, but he’s right on my heels.
“Go away, Joel,” I order as I turn a glare on him.
“Not until you talk to me.”
Rowan clears her throat and begins backing toward the front door. “I’m going to go pick up some groceries.” She grabs Leti’s sleeve and drags him out with her, and I scowl at them even after the door closes between us.
With my arms crossed over my chest, I shoot Joel a look of impatience and wait for him to say whatever the hell he needs to say. But he just stares right back at me, engaging me in a silent standoff that I don’t stand a chance of winning.
“What do you want from me?” I snap.
His trained expression reveals nothing. “Why do you think I want something from you?”
Because that’s what boys do. They pretend to give a shit about you, but only because they want something. And then when they don’t get it, they try to take it anyway.
My fingertips are absent-mindedly nursing my wrists when Joel gently draws my hands toward him. His thumbs caress my pulse points while he studies my bruises, and he wears a look of such sincere sympathy that I almost choke up. “He shouldn’t have done this to you.”
I pull my hands away and try to slam the lid back on my emotions, resenting Joel for bringing them to the surface. I spent all yesterday nearing tears and choking them back down, and if he makes me break down now, all of that effort will have been for nothing. “I shouldn’t have led him on.”
It’s the truth, but Joel’s brows pull down in a picture of contempt that makes me look away from him. “Are you seriously standing there excusing what he did to you?”
I shrug my shoulders. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing, but fighting and lying seems easier than telling the truth and crying.
“Dee,” Joel pleads, his slender fingers coming to rest on my shoulder, “you know nothing that happened was your fault, right? Cody is a piece of shit. The entire band voted him out. It was unanimous. It wasn’t even a fucking question.”
“You voted him out of the band?” I ask, dread churning in my stomach.
Joel nods, pushing my thick chocolate hair behind my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” I hate that the band is now going to suffer because I was too stupid to know better than to play games I couldn’t win.
“Why? You’ll never have to see him again . . .”
God, he just doesn’t get it. “Maybe I wanted to see him again!” I shout, needing him to know how upset I am but not wanting to explain why. If I was pouring my heart out, I’d tell him how stupid I am, how crazy he made me, how many regrets I have. But instead, I add more regrets to the list by shouting things I don’t mean.
Joel drops his hand from my shoulder like I just slapped him in the face. “Are you serious right now?”
“Who knows!” I snap, throwing my hands in the air. “Maybe I would’ve fucked around with him the next time you were busy fucking one of those girls from the grocery store!” His face falls, and I point an angry finger at him. “You know what, I don’t need to explain myself to you. You never cared about me before, why the fuck are you pretending to now?”
“No one’s pretending!” he shouts back at me, making me flinch. “I do fucking care about you, Dee, or I wouldn’t be here! The only one pretending right now is you.”
My humorless chuckle cuts the space between us. “Okay, Joel. Since you apparently think you know me all of a sudden, what am I pretending?”
“You’re pretending to be okay.”
The truth of his words pierce my heart, and I throw my defenses up, praying they don’t let me down. “I’m always okay. I don’t need you to be my knight in shining fucking armor.”
“Good, because I’m not your Prince fucking Charming. I’m just a guy who fucking cares about you, and I’m going to keep caring about you whether you want me to or not.” He turns away from me and tosses a dismissive hand in the air before swinging open the door to my apartment and slamming it behind him.
I’m left standing stunned in my living room, trying to make sense of his words through the haze of frustration in my head. He cares about me? Since fucking when?
Furious, I sprint to the door and swing it open, emerging into the hall and yelling at the back of his spiky head. “Where the hell are you going?”
“What do you care?” he shouts back without bothering to slow down.
“JOEL!”
His shoulders tense before he whirls around and shouts back, “To get shit to fix your stupid door! Is that a problem?”
When he walks away from me again, I chase after him. A million questions are warring for priority on my tongue, but the one I shout at him is, “Why?! Why do you care all of a sudden, Joel? You never cared about me before!”
In a second, his body spins and pushes me against the wall. His eyes blaze the color of butane flame, and my chin tilts high to hold their heated gaze. His bandaged hands lift from my shoulders to cradle my cheeks, and then he says in a voice so serious it gives me chills, “Because I saw what he did to you and I almost fucking killed him, Dee.”
The fire in his eyes steals the oxygen from my lungs as he searches my face for a fleeting moment. I want to kiss him. I want to rise on my toes and kiss him for doing everything I just yelled at him for, but before I can, his lips smash against mine.
My fingers claw over the thin fabric covering Joel’s hard shoulders, which flex under my touch when he wraps his uninjured arm behind my back and lifts me off my feet. Using that single arm, he carries me back to my apartment, and I cling to him the entire way. We tumble onto the couch, our need for each other desperate and consuming, a blur of kissing and touching that overwhelms me until I’m launching myself off his lap.
Out of breath, I toss a hand up when he begins rising to his feet to reclaim me. I want to tell him I’m not ready. I’m not ready to give him or anyone else what Cody wanted from me. And I’m especially not ready to give it to Joel when something has obviously changed between us, and whatever that is feels terrifying.
He sits back down, waiting for me to explain. When I don’t, he simply reaches out to take my fingers in his, gently coaxing me forward until I crawl sideways onto his lap. I tuck my cheek against his chest, and he holds me tight against his heartbeat.
“I’ve always cared about you, Dee.”
“Stop saying that,” I demand, but my heart isn’t in it.
“Why?”
Because you don’t mean it. Because I need someone to mean it. Because I hate that I need that. “Just stop.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
Frustrated, I pull away from him and slide to the opposite end of the couch. “You can’t really care about someone you don’t even know, Joel.”
He glares at me and says, “I’m willing to bet you know my favorite color, food, and band.”
Green, mozzarella sticks, and the Dropkick Murphys. I bristle and say, “So what? That would only prove I know you, not the other way around.”
“Purple, ice cream, and Paramore,” he says, and my anger bubbles to the surface when he gives all the right answers.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I nod my chin at him defiantly and say, “Big deal. You act like any of that shit means anything.”
Joel shifts to face off with me. “What it means is that we’ve spent enough time with each other to know those things, Dee. How are you going to sit there and seriously act like we don’t know each other? We spent Valentine’s Day together, for God’s sake.”
“All we did was have sex!” I protest.
“What about after that?”
I throw my hands in the air because he’s clearly insane. “Had more sex!”
Undeterred, Joel growls and says, “BETWEEN ALL THE SEX, DEANDRA!”
I glare at him while I think back, and then I remember, “We ordered pizza.”
“And?”
“And watched Lifetime movies.” That night, between all the sex, we’d sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch, with a box of pizza half on Joel’s lap and half on mine, criticizing the movie characters. We gave them horrible relationship advice that made us both laugh until Joel had a stitch in his side and I had tears in my eyes.
When the corners of my mouth slowly tip up at the memory, Joel returns my smile, his eyes brightening like he’s remembering too. “How many girls do you think I’ve sat around watching Lifetime movies with?”
When I don’t answer, he tugs my legs over his lap and says, “Look. It’s not like you ever really wanted me to be your boyfriend, so stop acting like you’re pissed off I didn’t want a girlfriend.” I open my mouth to say something I haven’t quite figured out yet, but he cuts me off. “You just wanted me to chase after you like every other guy who ever lays eyes on you, and then you would have dropped me just like the rest of them.” I would argue if I could, but I can’t, so I don’t. When I try to pull my legs away, he tightens his hold on them. “I’m not going to do that. I’m never going to do that.”
“Great.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, he says, “But I am going to care about you. Because you’re more than this bitchy person you pretend to be. You’re also the girl who watched shitty movies with me on Valentine’s Day and force-fed me crackers when I got shit-faced on New Year’s.”
I’m stunned into utter silence, a heat creeping into my cheeks as he becomes more real to me than he’s ever been.
“You can say I’m pretending all you want,” he continues, “but I’m not and there’s nothing either of us can do about that.”
“So you’re asking me to be your girlfriend?” I ask, attempting to sound flippant while a million nervous butterflies flutter in my belly. I don’t know what I want his answer to be. If it’s no, it’s going to hurt me. If it’s yes, it’s going to hurt him.
“What, just so you can turn me down?” he says with a half smile. “No, I’m not asking.”