Keep You (12 page)

Her pixie face crumpled, curtains of tears sweeping into place over her eyes. “It was terrible,” she choked out, hugging herself.

When he realized she wasn’t going to come to him, he went to her, and her arms slid around his waist instantly, her face pressed to the front of his tank top. “Tell me what happened,” he said against the top of her head and was terrified to hear the answer.

**

              The splash of whiskey Tam had poured her tasted like lighter fluid smelled. Jo threw it down and then coughed, a hand to her throat, eyes and tongue burning. But it did its job. As she cradled the empty tumbler between both hands, staring fixedly at the single drop of amber liquid that clung to its bottom, she felt calmer. Warmer. Like she’d swallowed a piece of charcoal and its heat was caressing her belly.

             
They were sitting on the overstuffed sofa in the living room, its back so deep that Jo’s feet dangled off the end, no hope of touching the floor. Tam was sitting beside her so close their legs touched, his upper body rotated toward her, curled over her, his arm behind her head on the back of the couch. She’d cranked the water in the shower as hot as it could go, eyes squeezed shut, steam radiating off her body, but she hadn’t been able to attain the warmth and peace she felt now.

             
“What happened?” Tam broke the silence, his voice soft, right against her ear.

             
“I feel so stupid getting upset the way I did,” Jo said to stall, embarrassment flaring at the thought of telling Tam what had happened – what she’d allowed to happen.

             
“Tell me,” he pressed.

             
She glanced at him sideways, saw the stern concentration on his face as he stared at her.  She knew that, embarrassed or not, there was no better person to keep her secret than the guy who was already keeping one: one that involved him.

             
So Jo told him about Nick, who he was, the unjustifiable reasons why she’d accepted his advances and agreed to be his prom date. She was a junior, and it wasn’t as if she even wanted to go prom, but her friends were going, they’d begged her…

             
He listened, silent, waiting.

             
“Prom was as lame as I thought it would be,” she continued, voice beginning to quaver as she came closer to the parts of her story that curdled her stomach contents. “But Megan and Claire and I were going to spend the night in the hotel right across the street. Mom approved it and there were going to be chaperones and…” she sighed, “the boys left with us and we all went up to the suite.”

             
She closed her eyes and could see Claire illuminated by a brilliant flash of lightning, her ivory dress snatched by the breeze, laughter tumbling from between her parted lips. Their giggles rang off all the concrete around them as they crossed the street. Nick had come up behind her and slid an arm around her waist in a familiar way that left her ill at ease.

             
“When we…when we got up there…” she opened her eyes and looked at Tam. His brows were drawn together in a furious expression. A flicker of lightning from beyond the window did incredible things to his eyes and left his face stark white in contrast.

             
“Is this going where I think it is?” he asked, and sounded so angry that she shrank back against the cushions.

             
“Where - ”

             
“Did that asshole force you to do anything?”

             
She swallowed the gathering lump in her throat. Her face burned with shame. “The three guys flipped for the bedroom. I didn’t get it at first, but - ”

             
“You’re not that naïve, Jo.”

             
“No.” She shook her head and glanced away. “I’m not.”

             
Five days after her seventeenth birthday, on a lazy Sunday when he had the rare occasion to be off work and her parents were attending one of Beth’s coworker’s daughter’s bridal showers, Tam had jokingly asked her what she wanted as a makeup for him missing her birthday. They’d been alone, save Jordan, and he’d been all the way downstairs and they were all the way upstairs. She’d grinned evilly and leaned in close so she could whisper in his ear, “show me what you do with your tongue ring.”

             
They’d both ended up shirtless and breathing hard, Jo’s blood feeling like liquid fire. He’d had her jeans unbuttoned, his hand slipping inside them before he’d checked himself with a groan and rolled away from her on the bed.

             
Jo had walked away from that encounter feeling warm and drunk and deliriously attached to Tam, every nerve in her body standing at full attention. If he hadn’t stopped things from progressing, she wouldn’t have, and there had been no hesitance, no fear of going too far. It had felt right. It was something she still craved.

             
But when Nick had pulled her to his chest and started mauling her, panic had come alive in her. When he pawed at her breasts and nearly ripped her dress in his efforts to get it off her shoulders, she’d shuddered, had tried to cover herself. She kept telling herself that this was normal, that this was what seventeen-year-olds at prom did: they slept with their dates and were happy about it.

             
But why did his kiss make her want to turn her head away? Why was the only thing swirling in her belly nausea? She’d felt naked, ashamed, self-conscious, and when his hand shoved down inside her panties, her eyes had pricked with tears.

             
“He chipped in for dinner and the limo - ”

             
“Jo,” Tam was firm, “that does not give him some free pass to - ”

             
“It’s my fault.” She was starting to get sniffly and couldn’t help it; her emotions were doing all sorts of strange cartwheels in her chest. “I led him on and I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know that I wasn’t going to like sex and then he got pissed.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she dashed it away. “I didn’t even like him, but Megan’s been giving me shit about, you know, and I thought I was weird if I didn’t, you know…turns out I’m weird anyway.”

             
“Jo.” His voice had become so commanding, tight like he was speaking through a locked jaw, that her head turned in his direction. His eyes were shooting blue sparks. When he spoke, it was like it was the most important question he’d ever posed in his life. “Tell me the God’s honest truth. Did he rape you?”

             
“No.”

             
“No?”

             
She wiped at her eyes again. “No.” Her voice started to shake as her tears became more insistent. “I kept telling him to stop and he got pissed and pushed me up against the wall. He got his pants down and – and I – I…” Her throat was closing up even though she really, really didn’t want to cry. Her body was crying anyway. “I kneed him in the balls,” she choked out. “And grabbed my clothes and ran. Now half the school’s gonna know!”

             
All the tension bled out of his face. For a moment, his eyes looked extra shiny, but then he blinked and it was gone. “Joey,” he said with a chuckle. His arm dropped off the back of the couch and slipped around her waist. He scooped her up into his lap and tucked her head in under his chin. He was warm and solid and smelled of that familiar mix of deodorant and hair product that her brain had labeled
Tam
years ago. It was better than sliding beneath the covers of her bed at home: twice as comforting. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he said against the top of her head.

**

              He told her he couldn’t sleep, which was the reason he’d been up when she arrived, and though she felt worlds better – she was not a freak when she was around Tam – she didn’t really want to go to sleep and be alone with her thoughts. The sofa was as deep and plush as a cloud, and they stretched out on it in front of wee hour TV, which amounted to
Frasier
reruns. Jo didn’t care what they watched, she was happy to feel him behind her, his arm around her waist, his breath stirring her hair.

             
She’d begun to think that maybe he’d fallen asleep when she felt him shift behind her and then his mouth was against her ear. “What do you mean you don’t like sex?” he asked in this quiet, sleepy voice that sent an instant shudder rippling up her spine. But this shudder was nothing like what Nick had elicited in her; this one brought the popping flare of bottle rockets to her stomach. His hand flirted with the hem of the shirt she was wearing, fingers playing across her bare skin. “I’m pretty sure you’d like it.”

             
She wanted to look at him, so she rotated in his embrace until they were face-to-face, the length of her body pressed against his. His face was a mask of flickering TV light, skin and eyes blue, his teeth gleamed when he gave her a tired, lazy smile. Jo’s heart was thumping in her chest and she wondered if he could feel it.

             
“Maybe if it was with the right person?” she asked and it wasn’t really a question, but came out sounding more like a plea.

             
She knew he was going to kiss her, but she didn’t know how perfect it would be. His hand cradled the side of her face and his lips touched hers with soft familiarity. She opened her mouth to him without any urging. She could taste whiskey on him. Their tongues slid over one another, contact with his tongue ring sending electrical impulses shooting through her.

             
It was gentle, but endless and hypnotic, and by the time he rolled over on top of her, she was straining to be closer to him, her back arching up off the sofa. This was not like it had been at the hotel; she knew exactly what she wanted, what she needed for him to do.

             
She dug her nails into his bare arms when he pulled back. “Please, Tam,” she said though she knew he was about to put a stop to things.

             
Instead, he skimmed the pad of his thumb down her cheek and said, “okay.” Then he got silently to his feet, took her hand in his, laced their fingers together, and towed her toward the stairs.

             
The master suite was at the top of the landing. Walt and Gwen’s boys were five and three and they shared a room with bunk beds across from the hall bath. At the far end of the hall were Walt’s home office and the guest bedroom. Jo knew the double bed and its tall, deep featherbed mattress stood in the center of the room, framed on either side by matching black end tables. The duvet was coffee-colored and dotted with black flowers. It was a pretty, serene room, with tan and white check drapes that matched the chair in the corner.

             
Jo saw none of that now. The room was bathed in shadow, the streetlamp outside invading the cracks in the blinds, highlighting the raindrops on the window and offering just enough of an ambient glow that she could make out the hulking shape of the bed.

             
Tam didn’t shut the door because they were alone. He preceded her into the room and then turned, catching her face in his hands. She could just distinguish one side of his face, one blue, blue eye, and the startling amount of emotion shining in it.

             
“I’ll be good to you,” he promised. “I’ll take good care of you.”

             
She smiled, not sure if he could see it, and felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes, though they were not borne of fear and trepidation like they had been at the hotel. “I know you will,” she assured him.

             
He turned away from her and yanked the duvet off the bed in one crisp motion, a nod to propriety that had a delighted giggle bubbling out of her throat. “Gwen would be so pissed,” he said, and peeled his tank top off over his head. The streetlamp caught the contours of his torso, the grooves of muscle and tendon. “Come here, Joey.” And Jo realized she was just standing and staring. She walked toward him and his arms caught her before she reached the bed.

             
There was no shame when he pulled her shirt up over her head and replaced it with his hands. Her breath caught and she leaned into his touch when he cupped her breasts and passed his thumbs over her nipples. She shucked her own sweatpants and hooked her fingers into the waistband of his. By the time they climbed into bed, naked, her heart was galloping in her chest, her skin tingling.

             
She expected things to move quickly, but instead, Tam stretched out on his side and pulled her against him, kissed her again like he had on the sofa downstairs. He was being careful, not rushing her as Nick had done, letting her get comfortable. She felt tears threatening again, grateful, emotional, heart-squeezing tears, and she pressed her palms to his chest, leaning into his kiss.

             
He touched her everywhere, until she felt flushed, her skin covered in goose bumps. A radiating, insistent, pounding heat was pulsing through her. She felt like she’d been drugged and like she’d popped ecstasy at the same time and was full to bursting with a desperate kind of wanting.