Seven Days (10 page)

For the first time in the eight years I’d been having sex, I felt desire pooling between my legs. I was finally experiencing things I’d only read about: the ache of wanting him inside me and the burning need to have him bring me to a climax for the first time. The men who took my body didn’t care if I enjoyed myself. On this thought, I tore my mouth from his, looking at the line of caulk that bound the toilet to the floor. Internally, I cringed at the thought of having my first, truly consensual sexual experience on the bathroom floor of a haunted hotel as I tried to bring myself back from the brink. I knew I’d been about thirty seconds from begging him to fuck me on a bathroom floor.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized as he fought to calm his breathing and drawing my confused eyes back to him.

“Why?” I asked, as he sat up and helped me off the floor.

“I— I let my craving for you take over and you aren’t that type of girl. You deserve so much better than that,” he declared, reminding me that he knew nothing of who I really was.

“I’m more that type of girl than you think,” I responded, pushing past him to head back into the room to get my clothes ready and grab my supplies.

“What’s that—” he started, following after me.

“I’m gonna jump in the shower and then we can head out,” I cut him off and disappeared into the bathroom again. This time, I remembered to lock the door after me.

**

After the most refreshing shower I’d had in my entire life, I found Ryan sitting on the room’s balcony. His eyes were focused on the clouds casting shadows on the valley in the distance. The view really was incredible. In that moment, I wished that I’d brought a camera so I could share my memories with Britton when we got settled wherever we were going.

“I don’t want you to run,” Ryan announced, startling me from my position leaning against the balcony door.

“I—”

“I’ve spent the last two days with you, Carrie. Because I met you, I— I finally understand why I needed to run,” he continued, not letting me protest. “I was coming to find you. Let me help you, whatever you are running from, let me help you,” he finished, looking at me with a fierce determination I wasn’t prepared for.

“Why?” I asked, meekly, not understanding what this beautiful man could possibly see in me. I was just the girl that wasn’t strong enough to keep her family afloat without resorting to using her body. I was the girl who kept her father in drugs so he didn’t make threats or question her.

“Because you have this amazing light around you,” he said. “I can’t explain it, but I feel drawn to you like a magnet. I think that you are so amazingly strong,” his words filled with conviction like he’s trying to convince me not to balk at them. “There are secrets behind your eyes that show me you’ve survived things that would take down most people, but here you are, still fighting.”

“Why did you run?” I asked him, sitting down in the empty chair beside him. His declarations made me desperate to take the focus off of myself. “You weren’t mixed up in the same habit, were you?”

“No, I’ve never touched the stuff,” he sniffed, less offended by my probing question than I would’ve been in his position. “I just couldn’t be there anymore. Robbie and I did everything together. I mean, he was even my roommate. I’d known him since I was a kid. Our families took summer trips together, so I just felt like could never escape the memories.”

“I can see how that would be tough,” I concede. Having to live in our house, where I watched my mother take her last breath was pretty damn difficult.

“It wasn’t just that,” he frowned, “That’s just the easy excuse. The truth is that Robbie died owing some serious players a lot of money. Drugs weren’t his only addiction. Drugs, gambling and women, they were his weakness. He was willing to pay or run up a tab for all three. Since we were friends, the guys he owed decided the burden to pay shifted to me when he died, so I ran.”

“Wow,” I breathed, my eyes leaving his to process his confession as I watched the wind blow through the valley.

“I know,” he groaned. “I’m a fucking coward. It’s not like I didn’t have some of what he owed them. It’s just that I didn’t want to set a precedent that made it okay for them to ask for more. So I left.”

Every word of his story puts another nail in my heart. He left, he ran, but he didn’t set a bad example that opened the door for them to make him pay over and over again. He stopped the cycle before it could start.

“Then you are far more brave than I am,” I whispered, blinking back the tears I didn’t know were close as I stood to go back into our room. Before I could move too far away, he grabbed my wrist and halted my exit.

“I know it’s not fair of me to ask you not to run, considering that’s why I’m here, but please,” he stopped to take a deep breath, holding my wrist behind me, “please tell me you’ll think about it.”

“Okay.”
I can’t.

“That’s all I ask.”

After Ryan’s turn in the shower, we discussed our plans for the day. I’d suggested we start to head south, but Ryan had different plans that had us taking the three-hour Northwest drive from Jerome to Laughlin.

He didn’t allow me the argument that it wasn’t in Arizona, nor did he allow me the point that it was merely Old People’s Vegas. His counter argument was that he wanted to see the Colorado River and hotel rooms were dirt cheap on a Wednesday night. So because he was bankrolling the trip, I gave in and we were off.

“Let’s hit the buffet,” he suggested after we checked into our hotel room. This time we didn’t have to share the room with alleged ghosts, plus, it had an amazing river view. Grabbing my hand and lacing our fingers together, he ushered us toward the door.

“Someone’s in a hurry to eat,” I joked, but found myself pulled back into his body with his lips at my ear. I felt him inhale against my hair, like he couldn’t stop himself. His exhale bathed my neck, deliciously, causing goose bumps to form all over my skin.

“No, baby, it’s just that after this morning, all I can think about is having you naked on that bed, screaming my name all evening. And I’m going to spend the day trying to make that happen. I don’t want to rush it,” he admitted, sending my blood gushing through my veins. “Although, you do still owe me a massage,” he waggled his eyebrows before leading me away from our bed for the night. I had to try hard to remind my body why I shouldn’t take him up on that offer right then. As it stood, regardless of the circumstances, this was the longest I’d gone without sex in nearly seven years, so it’s with a lot of reservation that I pulled him out the door of our room.

Later, after what felt like thirty trips back to the buffet line, Ryan and I were stuffed. I didn’t eat meals regularly. Having a full stomach always made me feel sluggish and it made fighting sleep that much harder. It’s easy to stay awake when your stomach was rumbling. The hunger kept your eyes from drifting too much.

“Ready to go work off some of these excess calories?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows at me. I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose at the innuendo. As much as I wanted him in the worst way, my belly wasn’t going to let me get naked in front of him any time in the next few hours.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” I groaned, leaning back in the vinyl booth and looked over the pile of empty plates and bowls scattered across our table.

“I meant are you ready to take a walk, check out the river?” he clarified with a laugh. “Do you need to try to call your sister or your dad first?” he asked, innocently, but the mention of my father at that moment sent a distant memory fluttering through my head.

“Shit!” I cursed, grabbing his phone from its position on the table. “Be right back,” I shouted over my shoulder as I left him stunned in his seat, barreling my way toward the door to the hotel, into the valet area dialing the phone. Voicemail. FUCK! I tried one more time before calling the diner.

“Tildy,” I said when she answered, my heaving breaths noticeable on the line. “I can’t get a hold of Britton,” I told her, my voice frantic.

“She’s at work,” my friend reminded me, and I exhaled in relief.

“I need you, and if he can, Marco, to go with her to the trailer and check in with our dad,” I relayed. “He may be out of it, but he needs to see her, at least, once every forty-eight hours I’m gone. I don’t know why I didn’t remember sooner. I’m so sorry.”

“Okay?” she agreed, her voice questioning.

“Please, whatever you do, whatever he says, whatever
she
says, don’t let her stay,” I pleaded, hoping I wasn’t making a colossal mistake by sending her home even for a welfare check.

“I promise,” she said with more conviction. I knew she could tell how much this meant to me.

“Thank you,” I sighed.

“No problem, honey. I hope you are having a great time with your eye candy,” she teased, bringing a smile to my face at the thought of the time that I’d spent the last few days with Ryan. “And you’re welcome, by the way.”

“The best,” I answered, honestly. Even though we’d had some bumps, I couldn’t remember a time I’d laughed or smiled so much. “And thanks.”

“Good, I’ll have Brit call when we’re done.”

“Thanks,” I said, ending the call and sagging back against the brick wall of the hotel before the memory I’d been fighting washed over me.

“
Where the fuck do you think you are going?” my dad asked me from the doorway of Britton’s bedroom. I’d turned 18 the week before and I needed to get away from everything I’d done to keep the house afloat for the last three years. I’d be damned if I was going to leave my fourteen year old sister as a substitute in my place. I knew that Ben and Dallas would be salivating to take from her like I’d let them consume me.

“
I’m taking my sister and we’re going somewhere else, somewhere the horrors of this town can’t get to her,” I proclaimed, pulling her clothes from her closet and folding them on her bed.

“
You’ll do no such thing,” he denied. “I’m still the adult here, I’m still her father.”

“
Yeah, when you aren’t so out of it that you actually know where you are. If you haven’t noticed, yet, I’m the one who’s taken care of her for the last four years,” I yelled, not caring if the neighbors heard. The park wasn’t the type of place that would call the cops, especially for a domestic dispute.

“
I’ve noticed,” he growled, taking a step into the room, his face fierce and his brown eyes glowing with anger. Shit, he must be sober. I should’ve waited until later to do this. “But I have a couple of questions for you, my holier-than-thou daughter. How long is it going to be before you end up like your mother? Why do you think I can’t stay sober for longer than a day, Carrie?”

“
I’m nothing like her,” I refuted, my jaw clenching in barely restrained outrage. “I pay the bills on this piece of shit because you can’t work. I make sure she has food. I make sure you never have to see the bottom of your stash,” I listed. “You wouldn’t be able to survive without me and what I do for this house.”

“
How do you think she started, huh?” he told me. “You even look like her, Carrie. You could be her fucking twin. So it stands to reason that you’re going to end up in the ground right beside her. Wouldn’t you think? You’re already fucking crazy, even without all the drugs,” he cackled.

“
I would never touch that shit!” I screamed, putting my hands over my ears and refusing to acknowledge that I feared everything he’d just said. I woke up every morning, wondering if today would be the day I decided to take my first hit. Every day I stayed awake so I didn’t have to relive the past, nocturnally, I got a little bit closer to wanting to find an easier way to numb the pain.

The asshole just stood at the end of Britton’s bed and laughed. “We’ll see, but that little girl isn’t going anywhere until she’s old enough to decide for herself, Carrie,” he laid out. “I don’t care if it’s a month, two weeks, twenty-four hours until she turns eighteen. If she leaves before August 12
^th
, 2013, I’ll have you arrested for kidnapping. Then how will you be able to help her?”

“Then how will you be able to help her?” his words echoed in my head. He’d said them to me several times in the last four years as I waited for our chance.

“Hey?” Ryan asked, calling my attention to him. Standing beside me for I don’t know how long while I disappeared into my own head. I wondered what he was thinking as butterscotch eyes assessed me from head to toe, trying to make sure I’d returned from wherever I’d been. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I think so anyway. I guess we’ll find out, right?” I shrugged, handing him his phone and pushing off the wall as if I weren’t going a little crazy.

“You were gone awhile,” his arm grabbed mine as I tried to walk away and turned me back to face him.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I was talking to Tildy. I forgot that Brit was working today.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, Carrie. Why do you always try to avoid talking about these moments with me? You can tell me,” he pressed. “I can’t help if you don’t.”

“If I thought you could help, I would spill my guts. This has been my life for the last eight years. So, yeah, I’m fucking okay, Ryan,” I spat at him, showing him that I probably wasn’t okay. “Let’s go check out the damn river.” With that, I pulled my arm out of his grasp and headed back to the hotel door. Yanking it open, I stalked through the cacophony of slot machines paying out as I passed through the casino floor. Wrenching open the door to the Riverwalk, I crossed the path and leaned against the railing overlooking the river and waited for Ryan even though I wanted to run. I couldn’t believe how dangerously close I was to letting him in. For half a second, I was ready to spill all my secrets to a man that was starting to mean too much to me.