Me: Tonight? Don’t you mean always?
Seth: You know, rumor has it you’ve been hanging out with the biggest skank on campus.
Luke: What? Who?
Seth: A bitchy roommate with a dragon tattoo on her neck. Goes by the name of Violet.
I scratch at my head, wondering where the hell he heard that from, but then it clicks.
Luke: Did Callie tell you that?
Seth: Well, she didn’t use those words per se since Callie would never use those words, but she said she saw you helping Violet around campus… what’s that about?
Luke: Nothing. I was just being a nice guy.
Seth: Since when r u a nice guy.
He has a point. I’m not usually a nice guy, but for some reason Violet momentarily brought it out of me. I’m not feeling like a nice guy right now though. I feel pissed off about my living situation and all I want to do is get trashed out of my mind and go find a girl to fuck so I can get rid of this feeling, like I’m falling into a bottomless pit.
Luke: I thought I’d try something different for a little bit.
Seth. How’s that going for you?
Luke: I think I’m deciding to quit it before it becomes a habit.
Seth: Good for u. U gonna do it cold turkey?
I shake my head. This could go on forever.
Luke: I’m headed out. R u and Greyson down or not?
Seth. Yeah, as long as we can get a cab. Neither one of us wants to be DD tonight and I’m doubting u do either, since u never offer.
Luke: Sounds good. Callie and Kayden coming?
Seth: They went out somewhere… I think up to that rock. They’re becoming obsessed with it and each other, lol.
Luke: Yeah… meet u out in front of my dorm in ten?
Seth: Sounds good :)
I check my insulin levels and grab my glucose tablets, just in case, then put my phone into my pocket and grab my key card and wallet. I toss my empty beer bottle into the trash and get another one out of the mini fridge, ready to get the hell out of here and start drinking even heavier. That’s what I love about spring and summer, when footballs not really going on and I’m free to get trashed as much as I like without having to worry about practice. It makes the noise and memories in my head just a little more bearable. It makes breathing bearable. Life bearable.
I started drinking when I was thirteen. I wasn’t with my friends or anything, just sitting at home after my mom had passed out on the sofa, not from heroin but from booze. She’d made me sit with her as she drank gulp after gulp, forcing me to hold her hand and coddle her like she was a sick person taking medication to numb the pain. As she started to doze off, she’d wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly against her, telling me that I would always be her little boy, and then sang a song to match her words. I hated when she did this, especially because I never felt like her little boy, even when I was seven. At that point in my life I knew our whole relationship was wrong, the things she made me do for her, like crush up her pills and the way she was always touching, but I was too ashamed to say anything and honestly I knew even then that nothing was ever going to change until I was old enough to get out of that damn house.
Finally, after holding me for way too long, she’d passed out into a deep sleep and I was able to slip out of her arms and be free for a moment. She’d left the bottle of whiskey out on the coffee table and I can remember sitting there, wondering what it tasted like, wondering why my mom needed to drink it all the time. So I picked it up and took a swig. The alcohol felt like it singed my throat and when it hit my belly it burned like fire. I was fascinated with the way it felt inside me, how the heat smothered out the wrong inside me, so I kept taking swigs until I passed out completely and for a moment, the wrong in me drifted asleep. After that, I’d always take a few drinks after she passed out and the more I did it, the more the rage and helpless feelings living in me became tolerable. And now I have a hard time functioning without it.
I’m about to head out when I get a call from my dad. I stare at my phone as it rings and rings, deciding whether I want to answer it or just silence his call. Finally, I hit talk and put it up to my ear, attempting to sound in a better mood than I am.
“Yeah,” I say, pressing the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I can unscrew the cap off the beer.
“Hey,” my father replies and there’s music in the background. “You answered.”
“Yeah, but I’m headed out so I can’t talk for long.” I tip my head back and guzzle a mouth full of beer, feeling the slightest bit better as it liquefies my throat.
“Oh, okay.” He sounds disappointed. “I was just calling to check in on you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my son and I worry about you.”
“Why? You didn’t when I was a kid. Why start now when I’m an adult?”
He pauses and the noise gradually gets quieter. Then I hear a door shut and silence fills the connection. “Luke, I know I haven’t been a very good father to you, but I’m trying to make that up to you now.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m twenty years old. It’s a little late to decide you want to be my father.”
“I’ve always wanted to be your father,” he says, nervousness creeping into his voice. “I just had a lot of stuff going on and I wasn’t in the right place to be a good father.”
“Well, I wasn’t in the right place to be without a father.” I head for the door, ready to bail out on the conversation because it’s getting a little too heart-to-heart for my taste.
“Luke, I’m sorry.” He sounds like he’s about to cry, which makes me feel a little bad for him but then I get pissed off at myself for feeling sorry for him. “If there’s anything I can do to make it up, I will.”
I pause with my hand on the doorknob, biting my tongue, arguing with myself over how much pride I really have. Then I think about going home to Star Grove with my mother, the house covered in plastic, her begging me to help her. It makes me want to puke. “There might be one thing that you could do.”
“Name it and it’s yours.”
I take a long breath. “You could let me stay at the beach house for the summer. I know you and Trevor are going to be there but I was hoping I could take one of the extra rooms or something.” Trevor is my father’s fiancé. I guess part of the reason why he left my mom was because he was struggling with the fact that he was gay. It took him years of drinking to finally accept that he was and come out to the world. It was about the time he reentered my life, but it was a little too late. Amy was already gone and I’d been around my mom enough that I only felt hatred for him for leaving me with her. I honestly don’t really know how I feel about our relationship now. Confused maybe. I mean, Trevor and him both seem like a nice guys but the fact that he left me to be responsible for shooting up my mother is what I’m most pissed off about.
He pauses long enough that I know he’s going to say no and I want to hammer my fist into the door, enraged with myself because I knew I shouldn’t have asked. “Luke… I’m so sorry, but Trevor and I are putting the beach house up for sale. We’re trying to get a house near work and we need a down payment.”
“Could I stay with you in your apartment then?” I almost sound like I’m begging and I grip on to the doorknob tighter.
Again he pauses way too long. “We only have a studio apartment right now and it’s overcrowded with Trevor’s art, but when we get the new place in a couple of months you can definitely come out and stay with us for as long as you want. We’d love to have you.”
I shake my head as my pulse pounds in my eardrums. I need to get out of here. I need a drink. I need to not have so much damn noise in my head. “Never mind,” I say, then I hang up. I let go of the doorknob, step back, and kick the bottom of the door hard enough that my boot leaves a dent in it. “Shit.” I press my hands to the side of my head, taking ragged gulps of air. Now on top of everything else, I’m going to have to try and explain to Kayden why it looks like a
boot went through the damn door, although he has broken a few pieces of furniture himself.
I can’t take this anymore. I knew I shouldn’t have asked my father for anything. I wish I could hate him, then maybe it’d be easier to feel so much anger toward him.
* * *
I party with Seth and Greyson at Red Ink until around nine or ten, downing shot after shot, my dad and my approaching homelessness becoming a dwindling problem. When we’re pretty trashed out of our minds, we get a cab to drive to a house out in this town in no-man’s-land… Fairtown I think… because Seth heard there was going to be a “raging party.” When we get there, there are so many people it’s hard to even move through the house. I end up losing track of Seth and Greyson in the crowd, but instead of looking for them I head straight for the drink area in the kitchen.
After I slam down about five shots of Bacardi, I head for the living room where the couches have been shoved aside and the stereo’s booming some pop song. I’m not a fan of the music but it’s danceable and there’s some slutty-looking girls that are barely dressed, totally bangable and easy, at least from what I can tell—my vision’s a little distorted right now. But I’m only looking for a distraction to get me through the night, so I can fall asleep in peace, something I rarely do.
I make my way out there and a short curvy brunette instantly comes up and starts rubbing up on my leg. I blink my eyes until I can kind of make out her face and then figure she’ll do. I get behind her and she backs her ass up into me as we rock to the slow, sultry beat of the song. As she leans her head back, I sweep her hair to the side and slide my hand up to her rib cage as she tries to seduce me with her best seductive gaze. What she doesn’t get, though, is she doesn’t have to try. I’ll take her back to her place and fuck her, just like she’s hoping. I’ll give her what she wants and in exchange I’ll get a few moments of silence where I can be free from the reality of my life and all the twistedness inside me won’t feel so sickening.
“You smell really good,” she says, batting her eyelashes with her head tipped back against my chest.
“I smell like cigarettes and Bacardi,” I call out because she’s so full of it. The whole room smells like sweat and beer.
“Well, maybe I like that smell.” She bats her eyelashes at me again as she slips her hand behind her and starts to rub my cock.
It’s starting to feel really good when she starts doing this weird thing with her hips, then she spins around and strikes some kind of cat-clawing pose with her hands out in front of her. “I used to be a stripper,” she tells me, shimmying her hips.
“In Fairtown?” I don’t even try to hide my disgust. The town is pretty much a trailer park out in the middle of nowhere and I’m wondering if my drunk vision is making her seem a lot more attractive than she really is.
She nods her head, doing a little twirl and her hair whips me in the face. “Yeah, for like a year.” She starts to back up and then comes at me again, shaking her tits, which are big enough that they bounce up and down. Then she starts whipping her head around as she swings her arms out to the side.
Any possibility of me getting hard dwindles and I’m about to tell her I’m going to get a shot, so I can get away from the whole nasty stripper dance she’s got going on, when I hear laughter from behind me.
I glance over my shoulder and my heartbeat speeds up just a little. Violet is standing behind me, trying to restrain her laughter, her lips smashed together so tightly they’re turning blue. I haven’t talked to her since our McDonald’s trip, where we sat down and had lunch like we were a fucking couple or something, which we’re not because I don’t do relationships—get involved. But I’ve seen her around on campus. I’ve been trying to avoid her as much as possible, trying not to look her way, otherwise I’ll get drawn into whatever the hell is pulling me toward her. It’s been a struggle, though, and a couple of times I’ve even found myself drifting in her direction.
Now she’s the one who’s drifted toward me, and I like it that she’s here. I hate that she has that much power over me, that I’m feeling things for her… feelings I’m still trying to figure out.
I frown as she opens her mouth to say something. I’m sure she has some sort of snarky remark on the tip of her tongue.
But she moves around to the front of me and says to the brunette, “Mind if I cut in?”
“Are you being serious?” the brunette asks then glances at me, waiting for me to respond.
“I’ll catch up with you later maybe,” I say to the stripper, being evasive to avoid any confusion later.
She shoots me a glare, putting her hands up in front of her. “Don’t bother. I’ve got plenty of other guys waiting in line to get with this.” She rolls her body and shakes her tits again and Violet covers her hand with her mouth, choking on her laughter as the brunette stomps off.
Once she disappears in the crowd, I quickly take Violet in. Her red and black hair is swept to the side and has this sexy wave thing going on. Her green eyes are outlined with black and her lips shine even in the inadequate light. She’s wearing this long black dress that flows all the way to her feet. It’s different from what most of the other girls here are wearing, in the sense that it covers up a lot more. But she’s not wearing a bra and even though her breasts aren’t as big as the brunette’s they’re more attractive, her nipples perking through the thin fabric and making my cock rethink its deflation.
“So are you going to stare at me all day?” she asks, biting on her thumbnail, scanning the crowd instead of me. “Or actually dance with me?”
I rip my gaze from her tits and focus on her eyes. “I thought you were joking about that.” I scroll over her body, taking my leisurely time, enjoying her slender frame. “You don’t really seem like the dancing type and plus you shouldn’t really be dancing on that ankle.”
“I can dance, swollen ankle or not,” she says neutrally, finally looking at me and again I’m taken back by how detached she looks. “But you don’t have to. I was just giving you an easy out from Bust-a-Move over there as a thank-you for helping my crippled ass around.”
“Who said I needed an out?” I question, concerned over the fact that I’ve actually missed bantering with her. “Maybe I was into Bust-a-Move.”
She holds up her hands and starts to back away from me. “Fine. I’ll let you be. I was just trying to do something nice, which I don’t do a lot.”
I let her take two more steps back before I reach out and wrap my fingers around her arm. She may be trying to pretend like she doesn’t give a shit, but I think she might. “I got nowhere else to be,” I say, pulling her toward me, figuring dancing with her might keep me distracted for a minute or two.
“Oh, lucky me. Luke Price wants to dance with me. Swoon.” She feigns a dreamy look, then tops it off with a roll of her eyes.
“Hey, you’re the one that asked me to dance,” I remind her as she reaches me. I slide my hand from her arm to her side and then around to her back. Then I guide her even closer, until heat builds between our bodies. Good, fucking God. I nearly moan when I realize that her dress doesn’t have a back, at least from halfway up.
I casually slide my palm down her back, checking to see where the fabric starts. I seriously fucking lose it as I feel the softness of her flesh all the way to her waistline, where I finally touch fabric. I detect a slight shiver on her part, but her expression remains emotionless, her gaze locked on me as she places her hands on my shoulders.
We begin to move to the song together and I realize that she wasn’t lying about being able to dance. Her hips sway softly against the grip of my hands, the front of her body grazing against mine. Each time our chests brush together a small breathy noise escapes her lips and it’s sexy as hell and turning me on, my cock getting rock hard. Jesus, I’m going to lose it if I don’t calm down.
After half of the song plays, she leans in toward my ear and whispers, “So why are you here, Luke Price?”
“Luke Price?” I grip her hips tight
er as I turn my head toward her. “What happened to Mr. Stoically Aloof?”
She shrugs, wetting her lips with her tongue as she traces her finger up and down the back of my neck. I wonder if she’s even aware that she’s doing it, but I’m definitely aware—too aware. “I thought I’d give the nickname a break tonight,” she says.
Our faces our inches apart and the heat of our breaths mix and make the already damp air even damper.
“Why are you here, Violet with no last name?” I maintain her gaze as I lean away just a little so I can get a better look at her.
The intensity in her expression mirrors my own and I wonder just how much I’m getting into just from dancing with her. She’s a challenge, secretive like myself, and that only makes me more curious. About her. About her secrets. About getting to know her. It gives her so much power over me, because I want to know her and she won’t let me. And I usually don’t want to know things about most people.
“For the awesome company, obviously,” she jokes and her lips quirk a little like she’s going to smile.
“Well, obviously.” I’m getting uncomfortable with the way my heart keeps speeding up every time she starts to smile and I’m debating on whether to leave or not. Yet at the same time I’m so turned on by the feel of her hips in my hands all I want to do is stay and keep touching her. My attraction to her ends up controlling me as my hand travels from her hips to her back and I press on the small of it, luring her even closer to me until her chest is pressing against mine. “How’s your foot?”