"The only thing I know is that you were going to live with some old pervert who likes to hit you and now you have no place to live," I clarify and dodge around her, heading for the entrance doors.
She walks across the parking lot beside me. "Do you have someplace to live?"
I rake my hand over the top of my head. "Does it really matter?"
"Maybe."
"That seems like your go-to answer." I bite my tongue, deciding whether to shout at her to back the f.u.c.k off or run like h.e.l.l. "Don"t flip this to being about me."
"Why?" she says, spinning around and walking backwards in front of me. "You know I"m homeless, so why"s it a big deal if I know you are?"
I stop at the curb, feeling something force its way up inside me. I"ve never been asked questions like this. People are usually too afraid of me and that"s the way I like it. And if it was any other girl I"d probably think she was just trying to get an invite home with me, but I"m starting to understand Violet enough to know that she"s probably getting a kick out of being a pain in the a.s.s.
"You"re right." I throw my arms up in the air exasperatedly. "I have no f.u.c.king place to live." I breathe heavily. "There, are you happy?"
She shakes her head, pieces of her hair blowing in the warm breeze as she looks over at a couple laughing beneath the trees. "No, not really."
"Me neither." I glance around the campus yard, scanning the trees, the few cars in the parking lot, my boots, looking anywhere but at her, otherwise she"ll pull me into her, like she"s been doing since she made me care enough to follow her to her car after she kicked me in the face.
"So now what do we do?" Her eyelids flutter against the sunlight as I glance up.
"You"re asking me what we should do?" I arch an eyebrow at her. "Really?"
She looks around defenselessly and I wish she"d bring back that detached att.i.tude so I wouldn"t feel such a need to help her. "I"m running out of ideas, but if I have to I"ll sleep on the streets," she says.
"You"re not going to sleep on the streets... we"ll figure something out." I close my eyes when I realize I said "we"ll," like we"re a couple, which we"re not. We"re just two strangers who keep crossing paths and can"t seem to get rid of each other. "If we have to, we can sleep in my truck."
"Yeah, I"ve seen how well that goes. You"re a serious seat hog." Humor laces her voice.
"You can sleep sitting up," I retort, opening my eyes. "Or take the back."
"Wow, what a gentleman," she jokes with a small smile and the tension around us crumbles.
"I"m not trying to be gentleman," I say, fighting a smile. "And I"ll never try to be one."
"Good, because I don"t want you to try. Guys who claim to be gentlemen are full of s.h.i.t."
"Okay..." I say. "I"m glad you don"t want me to be a gentleman."
She grins and it reaches her eyes and reduces the hideous swelling in her cheek. It must hurt like h.e.l.l. "I think I won that one."
I can"t help but smile and it feels strange and unwanted, yet it"s there. "Were we playing a game?"
"Aren"t we always?" she counters, plucking strands of her hair out of her mouth as the wind blows through her hair.
Again, she throws me out of my element, but instead of continuing to lose whatever game we"re playing, I surrender. "We should go get something to eat," I tell her. "Because I have absolutely nothing in my room but a bottle of vodka and a lemon." I glance down at her hands, the palms covered in dry blood. "And we need to pick up some peroxide and Band-Aids."
She folds her fingers into her palm as she chews on her lip. "Are you giving up our game?"
"What game?" I fake forgetfulness. "I"m just hungry. It"s like one o"clock and I haven"t had anything to eat. And the peroxide is for you-your hands look like s.h.i.t."
She looks down at her palms, cut up from the rocks, blood oozing out, and then back up at me. "Haven"t had your hangover food yet, huh?"
"Yeah, and I"m dying. I need to get some tacos in me."
"Tacos? I thought you said you didn"t like hamburger?"
"Tacos are about ground beef. Not hamburger."
"Potato, potato. It"s pretty much the same."
"It is not," I argue as I turn around and we start back toward the truck. "It"s completely different."
"Maybe you should go get cleaned up first." She runs her thumb down the side of my lip and the connection sends uninvited emotions coursing through my body. I have to clench my hands into fists, just to keep myself from grabbing her and crashing her lips against mine. She withdraws her hand and wipes her thumb and her finger together. "You have blood on your face and clothes."
I shrug, smothering the desire to jerk her hand back to me, rip her clothes off and bend her over the hood out of my truck. "I"m fine with looking like a man who just beat the s.h.i.t out of someone, but if you"re too embarra.s.sed to be seen with me, you can sit in the truck."
" "A man who just beat the s.h.i.t out of someone"?" she muses, stopping at the pa.s.senger door of my truck, her hand hovering above the handle of the car door. "Or a guy who just got his a.s.s kicked?"
I can"t tell if she"s toying with me or not, but it"s both irritating me and exciting me in ways I didn"t know were possible. Half the d.a.m.n time I have no f.u.c.king clue whether she"s being serious or not. Being a control freak, this should send me running, yet it"s having the opposite effect when it comes to her.
I decide to give her a taste of her own intense medicine, throw her off a little, regain the upper hand and hopefully scare her away. "Are you saying that I"m not tough?" I position myself in front of her, trying to get her to back up into the truck, but she stays still. "Or that I"m not a man?"
"I"m not saying either," she says with a fervent look in her eyes that nearly sends me soaring through the roof. The more intense I get the more excited she gets, which makes me want to get even more intense. "Although, I"m guessing that despite that fact, you"re still about to show me that you"re both of those things."
"Is that what you want me to do?" My voice comes out husky. This isn"t working out how I want, my plan of keeping her away backfiring on me. I take a step forward and then another, until I"m pretty much stepping on her feet. She still doesn"t back up and it frustrates me even more. "For me to show you how tough I am or how much of a man I am?"
She presses her lips together, her gaze unwavering, eyelashes fluttering. "I don"t want anything from you, Luke. I"m just simply saying what"s in my head. And the longer you"re around me, the more you"ll realize this."
The longer I"m around her? f.u.c.k. I reach a hand around the side of her and grab the door handle of the truck. "So you don"t think I"m tough?" I ask.
"I think you want to show me how tough you are and how much of a man you can be," she says.
I put my other arm on the other side of her, so she"s pinned between my arms. Most girls in this position would back up into the door, but she stands firm, refusing to let me control her like I desperately want to.
"And how would I show you?" I drop my voice to a husky growl, intentionally this time.
"I"m sure you have your ways," she replies, her gaze flickering at my mouth as I lean forward and our bodies press together.
It takes every ounce of strength not to seize hold of her hips and gently shove her back. Instead, I lean farther in, our lips inching closer. "I do have my ways..." I lick my lips and feel the sting of the cut. It reminds me of everything I just witnessed; with her, with me. I know if I kiss her it"ll more than likely lead to me jerking the door open and throwing her down on the truck seat, right here in broad daylight. I wouldn"t care who saw us. I never do. I"d just want to get this G.o.d d.a.m.n need to regain control out of me, the need she"s putting in me. But then what would happen after it was all over? Would we go get tacos and come back to my dorm and hang out? Yeah, that doesn"t seem at all possible, but neither does s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her and then bailing. I"m too far into her and I"m not sure how to get away or if I can get away at this point.
I clench my hands into fists as I fight the urge to shut my eyes and kiss her until she can barely breathe. I feel weak the moment I flip up that handle and start to pull the door open because I"m choosing to feel the vile, pathetic feelings of my past-how I did things I didn"t want to do, how my mother messed with my head, how I had no control over my life. I was a puppet. I was weak. I don"t want to be that person ever again.
I wait for Violet to move out of the way so I can get the door open, but she doesn"t budge and I"m the one who ends up stepping back, losing again. It"s an unsettling place I"ve arrived at and I don"t know what to do with it beside drink myself into a stupor and hammer my fist through anything that gets in my way. My body is actually shaking as my mind craves the burning, blissful taste of alcohol.
"So where are we going to get tacos?" She sidesteps around me and hops in the truck, tucking her skirt in as she brings her legs into the truck.
"You pick," I say as I shut the door.
She smiles a plain, fake smile, not even giving me the benefit of a real one. "It doesn"t matter to me," she says as I climb into the cab. Then she kicks her feet up on the dash and flops her head back against the seat, looking as calm as can be.
I have to wonder if she really means it. If nothing matters to her, and if she"s beginning to matter to me.
Chapter 9.
Violet We go get tacos, stop by a drugstore, go to the electronics store to pick up a new phone for him because apparently he lost his last night, then go back to his dorm. The conversation is as light as air, which makes it complicated, in my book. It"s too easy to be around him and it"s not supposed to be that way with anyone. Things are supposed to be hard so it makes it easier to keep up my wall and stay detached, so if and when he decides to exit my life, it"ll be like he was never really there at all.
But I can feel my wall collapsing, especially when he didn"t kiss me while we were by his truck. He could have and I could tell he wanted to. I probably would have let him, too, if only to taste the rush of adrenaline that was forming at the tip of my tongue the second he leaned into me. The way I was hyperaware of his body heat and my own was unfamiliar and it terrified me. All I wanted to do was silence the fear awakening inside me, but the closer he got to me, the quieter I got on the inside. He was my escape from my emotions, yet he was putting them in me at the same time. It was the strangest feeling and I had a difficult time deciding what to do. So I just stood there and let him decide and eventually he moved back and I was left relieved and disappointed.
I"m still a.n.a.lyzing why. The only conclusion I can come up with is that all the stress of being homeless and going to the police department tomorrow has caused my head to crack open and I"m not thinking clearly.
Only minutes after being in his dorm room, he leaves me alone in his room to take a shower. He has packed up hardly any of his stuff, which makes me wonder what he"s going to do when morning comes around.
I douse a cotton ball with peroxide and press it to my hand, feeling it sizzle against my dirty, sc.r.a.ped skin. I now have $7.56 less than I did, all because Luke didn"t want me to get an infection. I was fine with the risk, but he insisted it was unsafe. I almost laughed at him. If only he knew just how unsafe life can get for me.
I flop back on the bed that doesn"t have a sheet on it, just a mattress, the one that was Kayden"s I"m guessing, and stare up at the ceiling, rotating the cotton ball around on my hand. It burns and makes my palm ache, but I let it soak into me as I figure out my next step.
I"ve never had a friend before, if that"s even where Luke and I are moving toward. Preston and Kelley were the closest to friends I ever had, but they were more like my crazy babysitters/landlords than anything. There was no one actually caring enough about me to convince me to buy peroxide and Band-Aids, to clean some cut up and properly take care of myself. There was no one who would beat someone up simply because they were groping my breast. Luke had hammered his fist into Preston"s face without even so much as a second thought.
My heart starts to pump harder as I think about it, the way he did it without any hesitation, when the dorm door opens and Luke enters. He"s wearing a towel wrapped around his waist, his skin still a little damp from the shower. His lean muscles carve his stomach along with a ma.s.sive welt he probably got from the fight. He"s got a serious set of tattoos. Most are sketched in dark ink and tribal shapes except for an inscription that"s too small for me to read from this far away.
I drape my arm over my head, unable to take my eyes off him. "I like your tats."
He sets his dirty clothes down on the dresser and shuts the door with his foot, his brow curving upward. "Was that a compliment?"
"Perhaps."
He sinks down on the made bed across from me and disappears out of my line of vision. "You have some of your own, on the back of your neck, right?"
"Yeah, two of them," I say, returning my concentration to the ceiling, my hand balling around the drying-out cotton ball. "I have more, though."
"Where?"
"It"s a secret."
He pauses and the mattress squeaks. "So, do you want to just crash? I"m kind of tired."
I shake my head, listening to my heart thud in my chest. Even though I"m tired, if I just crash then I"ll have to think about what happened and if I think about what happened I"ll have to feel how I feel about it and if I feel it, I"ll just want to get up and do something reckless. Then afterward, I"ll be content and get tired, wanting to crash, and the whole process will start over. It"s a vicious cycle. "I"m not tired at all."
He sighs heavyheartedly. "Then what do you want to do?"
I boost up on my elbows to look at him, fixing my attention on his swollen jaw instead of where his towel is starting to open up. "What do you usually do on a Sunday night?"
He reaches for a bottle of Jack Daniel"s on the desk by the foot of his bed. "Get drunk and get laid." He watches my reaction as he tips his head back and takes a swig.
"Isn"t getting drunk bad for you... because you"re a diabetic?"
He shifts his weight uncomfortably and then looks away toward the window. "I"m fine. I don"t do anything I can"t handle."
I seem to be making him upset and I don"t understand why. But I let the subject go, since I"m the last person who should be lecturing anyone on what"s good and bad for them. I sit up and slide to the edge of the bed, planting my feet on the floor. "Well, if getting drunk and getting laid is what you want to do then you"re going to have to go have fun solo," I say. "Because I don"t do either of those things. Well, I drink sometimes, but not a lot." I divulge the truth to him, but not deliberately. My brain is clearly tired.
His eyes immediately snap in my direction as he chokes and alcohol sprays out of his mouth and onto the carpet, making my confession worth it. "What?" he sputters, setting the bottle back down.
"What? Drinking makes me act vicious and kind of crazy so I try to avoid it unless I want to act mean and crazy." I know that"s not why he"s choking though. He"s choking because I said I was a virgin.
"You mean more than you already are?" he asks warily, wiping the whiskey away from his lips with his hand.
I cross my legs and the split on my skirt opens up, revealing my thighs. I notice his gaze travel toward them, his eyes blazing with something I"ve seen in guys" eyes many times. I can"t help but wonder if Luke could be my reckless thing at the moment if I decide I want to go that route. The way he hit Preston, without so much as thinking, and the strip club fight... it makes him seem sort of dangerous, which makes me think he could feed my craving. But do I really want to get involved? Feel a connection? Because when he kissed me in the truck, I"d felt something other than numbness. I felt a spark. Life. Need.
"Yeah, so imagine how bad I can get," I say.
His heated gaze skims from my legs to my face. "It"s probably a good thing then." His fingers seek the bottle again, his blazing eyes still fastened on me. He takes another swallow, peering over the bottle at me.
"Does it make you uneasy?" I ask, leaning back on my hands, amused that I"m making him tense over the fact that I"m a virgin, yet he won"t comment on it. "That I am."
He sets the bottle down again and his tongue slips out of his mouth to moisten his cut lip. "Does hearing that you get crazy and vicious when you"re drunk make me uneasy? Why would it when you"re that way sober?"
"Don"t play dumb," I say. "I know you"re thinking about how I just told you I was a virgin, which is why you spit out your drink all over the floor... so does it make you uneasy, knowing I haven"t had s.e.x."
"No, but your bluntness does." He rubs his eyes with his hands to conceal whatever look is crossing his face. "I... I just don"t get how." He lowers his hands to his lap, "How you..." His eyes skim up my body, lingering on my legs and then on my see-through shirt. "How you could be one?"
"A virgin." The word itself seems to make him uneasy, which only makes me want to say it more. "Why don"t you get how? Not everyone wants to have s.e.x."
"Yeah, but..." He trails off a.s.sessing me with his intense brown eyes and now I"m the one that has to work to not fidget. "You dress the way you dress and act the way you act... you fool around with guys... it doesn"t make sense."
"I dress the way that I want to," I tell him, tucking my hands under my legs to try to hold still. "And I act how I need to, but I don"t get why that would make you think I"m a s.l.u.t... Is it because of Callie? I think she might have thought I was a wh.o.r.e or something."
"Why would she think that?"
I shrug. "Probably for the same reasons you think I am."
"I didn"t think you were a s.l.u.t," he insists. "I just thought..." His eyes enlarge and then he clears his throat. "Anyway, so if I can"t drink or get laid tonight, then what else is there to do?"
"You can do whatever you want." I put my hands on my lap. "I just said that I don"t drink or get laid."
He seeks the bottle again and tips his head back, pouring the last few drops down his throat. He gets up and tosses the bottle into the trash by the foot of the bed. I bite my lip watching his muscles ripple like they did when he was fighting with Preston.
"We could play cards," he suggests, opening the closet door. He bends down to pick a shirt up from off the floor and the towel slides lower and lower on his hips. I"m not sure if I"m so much as fascinated with his body as how my body is reacting to the sight of him. Invigorated. Excited. I"ve never been excited over a guy before. I"ve either been disinterested or afraid. With people in general.
Regardless, I want to feel it more, let it shower over me. "Cards?"
He has a tattoo on his shoulder blade, a dragon. I touch the back of my neck where my own dragon tattoo is as he stands back up and turns around with a deck of cards in his hand. "But the deal is that we can"t play for money."