Full Throttle (Fast Track) (25 page)

He kicked me. I couldn’t believe that he just kicked me. I yelped, and before I could respond, Tyler was between me and Grant, pulling him to his feet.

“I heard her say no. Now get the hell out of here. Go home. What is wrong with you? You don’t treat a chick like that.”

They scuffled a little, Grant shoving Tyler’s arms off him as he made his way to the door. “Man, I was doing her a favor. No one else wants her.”

Tyler’s response to that was to punch Grant in the face, knocking him into the wall. “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll beat your ass into tomorrow.”

Grant peeled himself off the wall, shot me a look of hatred, then left, the door slamming hard behind him. The tears were rolling down my face, whether I liked it or not. The realization that I was almost raped settled over me, and his hateful words lay on top of that, a final insult. He was right. No one wanted me. But that didn’t mean I could be treated like shit. It didn’t mean I wasn’t a person, that I should toss over my dignity and accept whatever attention I got, no matter how selfish and crude it was.

“You okay?” Tyler asked, popping open his beer and holding it in front of me.

I shook my head. Because I didn’t want the beer. And because I wasn’t okay.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know he would do something like that. I feel really bad.” He set his beer down on the end table. “Do you want me to give you a ride home? Jessica’s asleep.”

Great. All I wanted to do was retreat to our dorm and cry in my bed, but Jessica was taking a post-coital nap. It was bold for me, but I decided to accept his offer, even though I knew I was putting him out. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, no problem. Just let me get my keys.” He made a face. “And a shirt. It’s cold out there for October.”

He went back into the bedroom and when he came out, Jessica was actually with him. “Rory, are you okay?” She rushed over to me, blond hair flying behind her, dressed in men’s pajama pants and a huge sweatshirt. “Tyler told me what happened.”

Her arms wrapped around me and I let her hug me, grateful for the contact and her concern.

“What an asshole. If I see him, I’m going to cut his dick off and shove it down his throat. Let’s see how he likes cock crammed in his mouth.”

Her vehemence made me feel better. “I should have . . .” I started—but then stopped myself. I should have what? I shouldn’t have done anything differently. I was just sitting in my chair and he made a world of assumptions and I said no, and that was the truth of it. I wasn’t going to blame myself that he’d taken a fist to the face.

“No, screw that,” Jessica said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And I’m sorry I left you alone with that prick.”

“I’ll be right back,” Tyler said, his phone buzzing in his hand. He retreated into the bedroom as Kylie came out, her hair a hot mess, makeup streaked.

“What’s going on?”

“Grant tried to rape Rory,” Jessica said in such a loud, matter-of-fact voice I couldn’t help but wince.

“What? Are you effing kidding me?” Kylie could have been Jessica’s twin. They were both tall, blond, tan, toned. They were getting vague degrees in Gen Ed and would probably wind up as wedding planners and golf wives, while I was intending to go to med school to be a coroner. I was more comfortable with dead people than living ones. But for whatever reason, they liked me. And I liked them. Their reaction cemented that feeling. They both looked like if they had had a baseball bat and five minutes alone with Grant, he’d wish he’d never been born.

I didn’t want to fight Grant. I just wanted to forget it had ever happened. “I did kiss him,” I said, because I felt guilty for that. That was leading him on, a little.

“So? A kiss is not a promise of pussy,” Kylie said.

She was right. “I know,” I said, miserable, confused, stomach upset. I sat down on the end table, looking at my boots. “But I mean, it’s not like I haven’t thought about being with Grant. I have. But he was so . . . and I don’t want it, my first time, to be like this . . . and I should have done . . . something.”

So much for telling myself I wasn’t going to do that. There I was, worried, feeling like I’d had some part in what had happened.

“Your first time? Wait a minute, are you saying you’re a virgin?” Jessica was staring at me blankly. “For real?”

Oops. I hadn’t really meant to share that. It wasn’t exactly a deep, dark secret, and it really couldn’t have been that much of a shock to her, but it wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to go around talking about. “Um. Yes. I just haven’t . . .”

Had the opportunity.

“There hasn’t been anyone . . .” I reached for the beer Tyler had abandoned and took a sip. I was drunk, but not nearly enough to not suddenly feel completely and totally middle-school mortified.

“Oh.” Kylie looked bewildered. “Well, that’s cool. Lots of girls make that choice.”

“It hasn’t been a choice. Not exactly. I mean, if I could, I think I would.” I did. I was twenty, and I had all the same physical feelings as other people. Just no one to explore them with. In a way that wasn’t a quickie on the stained carpet.

“Well, why can’t you?” Jessica asked.

“Because no one is offering. I guess technically Grant offered, but I don’t want it like that.” I was sorry I’d brought it up at all. It wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have with Tyler and Nathan a few feet away.

“So you want, like, romance?”

Was that what we called it? “I guess.”

Tyler came back into the room, pushing his cell phone into his front pocket. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” I found my cross-body bag on the floor and put it over my head.

“Tyler, Rory wants romance,” Jessica told him. “What do you think of that?”

My face burned with embarrassment. I didn’t want to be the subject of discussion. I didn’t want Tyler to stare at me the way he was, dark eyes scrutinizing mine. He was the typical bad-boy type—which was why Jessica liked him—and I was the kind of girl he would never notice. And he hadn’t ever noticed me, not really. I was the quiet friend of Jessica and Kylie whose presence he tolerated. But now his eyes were sweeping over me, assessing, and I couldn’t read his expression.

“I think she should have whatever she wants.” He reached out and took the beer can from my hand, his fingers brushing mine. “But nothing says romance like a six-pack. I need to pick up more beer.”

I shivered from his touch and from the inscrutable look he was giving me.

“I’m staying here,” Jessica stated. “It’s too cold outside to go home. See you tomorrow, Rory.”

Kylie was already curled up on the couch, in a praying position, half-asleep as she gave a weak wave. “Bye, sweetie.”

“Okay, bye,” I said, shoving my hands in the front pockets of my jeans, wishing I had worn a thicker coat. I was cold and I wanted a hot shower to wash away the beer and the fear and the feel of Grant’s wet lips on me. But first I had to sit in the car alone with Tyler. A perfect ending to a crap night. Awkward small talk with my roommate’s Friend with Benefits, who had punched his own friend on my behalf.

As I followed Tyler down the metal stairs, the smell of fried foods strong in the hallway, I thought that was the end of any talk about my virginity.

I didn’t know it was just the beginning.

I
couldn’t go home for the summer. I just couldn’t.

Going home would mean endless worried looks from my mother, and reminders about following curfew and the dangers of alcohol and pre-marital sex. M
y father would force me to volunteer—which was
such
an oxymoron—to teach Sunday school at his church, and threaten to throw out all my revealing clothes. Like shorts. Because wearing shorts in summer was so scandalous.

I couldn’t deal with it, a whole summer ruined with their good intentions and their high moral standards that only a saint could live up to. And I’m no saint.

So I lied and told them I was spending the summer in Appalachia building homes for the poor with a Christian mission group when I was actually staying in Cincinnati and working at a steak house. I know. That was kind of a shitty lie.

But it was the only one that would have worked, so I had gone with it and there was no turning back now. Maintaining my freedom was worth a little guilt that I wasn’t actually helping people in need, though I suppose I could argue I was at least fueling the economy by serving beef. So the only thing still unresolved was where I was going to stay for a week in the gap between when I had to leave my dorm and when I could take over a sublet on an apartment June first.

I had a plan. Turning the doorknob, I stepped inside and assessed the situation. My roommate Kylie, snuggled with her boyfriend, Nathan, who lived in the apartment. Tyler and my other roommate, Rory, also cuddling. The sap-factor in the living room was huge, with Kylie on Nathan’s lap, their fingers entwined, while Tyler did that weird thing he was constantly doing where he played with Rory’s hair and made me want to smack his hand away on her behalf. She always seemed okay with it, though, go figure.

“Hey, Jessica!” Kylie said brightly. “Cute top.”

“Thanks.” I had put the tight red tank on absently, then had wondered if more cleavage would be better for what I had in mind, then had been disgusted with myself for even thinking such a thought. So then I had decided no cleavage was necessary to my self-respect and pulled a Union Jack shirt on over the tank. Appearance was such a process. “What are you guys up to?”

“I’m watching
Inglorious Basterds
,” came a voice from the kitchen. “Everyone else is engaged in foreplay.”

Ugh. Trying not to sigh, I turned and saw Riley Mann, Tyler’s older brother, popping the top of a beer can. He was not who I wanted to see.

“Jealous?” I asked him lightly, forcing a sardonic smile. Everything about Riley annoyed me, from his sarcasm to his inability to ever be serious, to the fact that he was hot as hell and so clearly knew it. I didn’t see him very often since he worked full-time in construction, which was perfectly fine with me. It was easier to breathe without his testosterone choking the room.

He shook his head. “No. Sex is not worth the headache of a relationship. And my hand doesn’t expect me to text it twenty times the next day.”

There was mental imagery I did not need, though I couldn’t argue with his opinion that relationships were a crapload of work. I made a face. “You’re always so charming. Is Bill here?”

“He’s studying in his room,” Nathan told me. “He has a physics final tomorrow. God, I’m so glad I’m done with my exams.”

I was done, too, which was why housing was becoming something of an issue because I only had two days until I had to vacate the dorms. “Okay, thanks.” I started down the hall to Bill’s room.

“You’re going in there?” Nathan called after me. “I’m warning you, he’s in a mood.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. I just want to say hi.” Bill had been crushing on me for six months, ever since his girlfriend from high school had dumped him for a basketball player at Ohio State. We had hooked up a few times, but I had been totally clear about not wanting to date. I was not in the market for a relationship at all.

Without knocking, I went in to Bill’s room. He was at his desk, and with the exception of the books and papers spread out in front of him, his room was neat as usual, bed made, no sign of finals stress. Until you got to his hair. Then the tension was evident in the floppy curls sticking out in various directions, looking like he hadn’t made nice with a hairbrush in days. His glasses were sliding down his nose when he looked up, and he was a very cute, modern interpretation of the absent-minded genius.

“Hey,” he said, looking vacantly at me.

“Hey. How’s studying going?” I propped a hip on the corner of his desk and smiled.

“Not bad, but I still have a lot to go through. Did you need something or did you just want to hang out? Because I can’t until tomorrow.”

“I wanted to know if I can stay here with you, in your room, for a couple of days.” Okay, so it was more like eight days, but who was counting?

“What?” He frowned. “What do you mean?” He tapped his pen on his lips and blinked up at me.

“I need a place to crash until I can get in the apartment I subletted. There’s no way I’m sleeping on that couch in the living room. It’s like chain mail. But I can sleep in your bed with you, right?” I smiled and used the tip of my finger to push his glasses up. “I promise I won’t kick you in my sleep like I did last time.”

For a second, he didn’t say anything. Then he shook his head. “No.”

That was definitely not the answer I was expecting. “What? Why not? Okay, so I know I can’t promise to have control over my limbs when I’m sleeping, but you can always kick me back. I don’t mind.” He couldn’t be seriously telling me no. My heart rate started to increase, anxiety creeping up over the back of my neck.

“I don’t care if you kick me, it’s not that.” Bill sighed. “Look, Jess, we both know it’s no secret I like you, and you’ve been totally straight up with me about not returning the sentiment, and I appreciate that. Maybe it’s insane of me to say no, because sometimes I do manage to talk you into hooking up when you take pity on me, but I can’t share a bed with you every night for a week and not feel like shit about it. I just can’t.”

My jaw dropped and I felt a hot flood of shame in my mouth, which made me angry. I hadn’t done anything to feel bad about, despite what my dad’s opinion about it would have been. “You make it sound so sketch. We’re friends. We’ve hooked up when we both felt like it, not because I was desperate and you were my only option, or because I felt sorry for you. I’m not that nice of a person that I’ll blow you out of pity. I just like you as a friend and I think you’re cute. We have fun. Apparently, I was totally wrong in thinking you felt the same way.”

“I do feel the same way,” he insisted. “The problem is, I feel more than that, and I’m just not into torturing myself. I want you to be my ‘girlfriend.’” He made air quotes. “Pathetic, I know.”

The thought of being anyone’s girlfriend made me want to throw up in my mouth a little. There was no way I wanted to give a guy that much control over my emotions and my time. I had finally gotten away from that for the first time in my life.

“I’m sorry. It’s not pathetic, it’s just . . .”

“It’s you, not me.” He rolled his eyes. “I know. You can save the let-him-down-gently speech for another dude, I get it.”

I had to admit, that was kind of a relief. “This is awkward,” I told him.

“Probably more for me than for you,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Look, you can stay on the couch.”

“Except now it will be weird.” It already was.

“No, it won’t. I won’t be needy or anything. I just need to have some self-preservation.”

“Okay, I understand.” I did. But it made it different. I couldn’t casually touch him anymore. I couldn’t flirt without feeling like I was leading him on, and I would have to be careful around him. I fought the urge to sigh. Why did everything have to be so complicated between guys and girls? Curse hormones. “Good luck on your final.”

“Thanks.” He gave me a smile, then he returned his attention to his book.

I left, feeling deflated and oddly sad knowing Bill and I couldn’t quite be friends in the same way we had been. But then again, maybe we’d never really been just friends, because I had always known he liked me. And why did that suddenly make me feel so guilty?

“That was fast,” Riley said the second I came into the living room, his feet up on the coffee table, expression bored. “I guess that’s why they call it a quickie.”

“Shut up,” I said with more vehemence than I intended. I was feeling bad and I couldn’t precisely figure out why Bill’s rejection had bothered me so much. I didn’t need Riley judging me.

“What’s wrong?” Rory asked, peeling herself off Tyler’s chest where she was splayed like plastic wrap.

“I just don’t have anywhere to stay for the next couple of weeks, that’s all.” I didn’t want to say in front of Riley that Bill had turned me down. It would be like handing him the material for a ten-minute stand-up routine at my expense. No, thanks.

“You can stay here,” Nathan said.

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“Why not?” Kylie asked.

I shot her a look, hoping she’d get the hint.

“Did you and the nerd have a fight?” Riley asked. “Is he not putting out enough for you?”

It really wasn’t fair that such a beautiful face was on such an asshole of a guy. Riley was a little shorter than Tyler, just as muscular, but whereas Tyler had a certain hardness to his face, Riley had been gifted with adorable dimples and large eyes. It was almost tragic he was such a jerk-off. I ignored him, but it wasn’t easy, because he seemed to take great pleasure in pissing me off. I really wanted to throw something at him. Like my fist. Right into his cocky face.

“You can stay at my house,” Tyler offered. “The boys and I are going to Rory’s dad’s for a week, remember, so you’d have a bed to sleep on.”

There was a thought, though it was an intimidating one. “Is it safe?” I asked, before I thought about how rude that actually sounded. Tyler and Riley lived with their two younger brothers in a lower-income neighborhood in a house the bank was in the process of foreclosing on since their mother had died. Riley had lived in a basement before that, but once his mom had overdosed, he had moved back in. I’d never been there, but I was picturing a crime-infested neighborhood with drive-by shootings and prostitutes on every corner. My parents lived in a mini-mansion in a small town, so I didn’t exactly have street cred. My experience with poverty was limited to movies and episodes of
COPS
on my laptop. It was like a bear walking through the desert, I had no previous exposure.

“I mean, won’t the neighbors think I’m breaking and entering?” I added, as a very lame cover to my initial question.

“Princess, I don’t think anyone is going to think you’ve broken into our shithole and are squatting,” Riley said, rolling his eyes. “If anything, they’ll just think you’ve come over to score drugs.”

“Rory stays with me all the time,” Tyler added. “No one will even notice. People keep to themselves in our neighborhood.”

“I never feel unsafe there,” Rory said. “But then again, I’m never sleeping there alone. Tyler is always with me.”

“I’ve never lived alone,” I said. Even for a week, the thought had a certain appeal. No one’s opinion but my own. No rules. No guilt. No feeling bad that I could never live up to anyone’s expectations. It sounded awesome, and scary. I wanted to try it, just to see what it would be like. “That sounds great, Ty, thanks for offering.”

“Have both of you forgotten something?” Riley asked, picking up his beer.

“What?” I said, wary. I just knew I wasn’t going to like whatever he was going to say.

“I’m not going to Rory’s dad’s to swim for a week like a kid at summer camp. I’ll be here, working. Living in my house.”

Oh, God. I couldn’t help it. I made a face.

The corner of Riley’s mouth turned up. “That’s exactly how I feel about it, Princess.”

“I think it will be good for you guys,” Kylie said, an eternal optimist. Or suffering from massive delusions. “You can become better friends this way.”

“Maybe we don’t want to become friends,” Riley told her. “Maybe we like not liking each other.”

I almost laughed. There was a certain truth to that. I basically felt like I’d seen all I needed to see to know I didn’t need to see more. But if I said that, Kylie’s head would explode. She was a very honest and kind person, and she didn’t always get my point of view. Or anything involving math.

“How much will you even see each other? You both work and it has three bedrooms,” Tyler said. “It seems stupid to sleep on a floor somewhere when there’s plenty of room at the house.”

“It’s up to Riley,” I said, because that only seemed fair. It was his house. “Maybe he wants some alone time with all of you gone.”

I didn’t mean that to sound quite as weird as it did.

He laughed. “Does that come right after Me Time and Circle Time?” He stood up and moved further into my space than was strictly appropriate.

It was a game of chicken and I lost by instantly backing up. Damn it. He smirked in triumph.

“I’ll be fine. I can handle it if you can.”

I was playing right into him and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Of course I can handle it. What’s there to handle?”

He stared at me, his eyebrows raised, a challenge in his deep brown eyes. The stubble on his chin was visible and I could smell the subtle scent of soap and a splash of cologne. He looked and smelled very, very masculine, and I was suddenly aware of my body in a way that made me seriously annoyed.

“Bring some beer.”

“I’m not twenty-one.” Not that it had ever stopped me from drinking, but I wasn’t going to give Riley anything I didn’t have to. I did not want to feel like I owed him. It was Tyler who had made the offer of a place to crash, so if anyone deserved thanks, it was him, not his arrogant brother.

For a second, Riley’s eyes roamed over my chest, like he could gauge my age by my boobs. Such a tool.

But then he just said, “You can borrow my ID.”

And I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Because we’re practically twins.”

He nodded. “Though I am
slightly
better-looking.”

I snorted. “I have better hair.”