Trust Me (2 page)

*

By the time we made it home the sun was starting to come up and the sky was turning my favorite color of deep, dark purple. We snuck back through Noah’s window, Noah sliding in first before I heard him gasp. There was the sound of jostling and clattering like something had fallen.

“Noah,
are you ok?” I asked in a loud whisper. He didn’t respond and I screamed as my dad’s face came through the window.

“Get
in here now, Princess.” My dad demanded pulling me by my arm. He turned his anger on Noah immediately, hitting him in the face the same way they do on Noah’s combat games.

“I hate
you!” Noah screamed at him, but Daddy just kept hitting him.

“Your little games don’t solve anything,
Noah, they just piss me off more!” Daddy kicked Noah while he was on the ground and then Noah went silent and stopped moving. I could see him breathing so I hoped that he just fell asleep like he has before when Daddy hits him.

“Come with me,
Caroline.” Daddy says. He called me Caroline and that means he’s mad and I have to apologize when he gets loves now. I hate when he is mad.

I leave with
Daddy because if I don’t or if I cry then he would get mad at Noah all over again. I walk past Noah and promise silently that I can get Dad to stop. I’ll tell Dad that I’ll stop playing ‘trust me’ if he leaves Noah alone.

I don't want to change anymore
I've already paid (said, I've already paid)
I don't have to pray anymore
Because my soul has been saved

Chris Cornell

Chapter One

May almost two years ago

Gig Harbor Washington

I had just turned twenty and finished my third year of college. It was the end of May in Gig Harbor and the beaches were bound to be packed. I wanted to work and earn money for a new school wardrobe. When classes started back up in the fall, every penny would be spent on simply surviving. But this summer I was working to make sure I looked like a young woman in search of a man. I had always been a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, but took pride in having fabulous hair and pristine makeup. Perhaps that’s why it seemed all the boys had been confused by me. Perhaps it was because my father had done a number on me before I was a year old. Most likely it was because I was a little bit shy and a whole lot shut off, determined to a fault to get a degree and leave my past behind.

I never understood glamour, it had always felt like I was in someone else’s shoes when I dolled myself up just to go to class. I preferred to turn heads when I went out with friends, but it wasn’t an everyday thing for me.

I had my summer job helping out at our family run burger joint aptly named, ‘The Joint’. My mom and dad opened The Joint back in the seventies before Noah and I were born. They started in Seattle and now there were ten locations through-out the state of Washington. Gig Harbor was home now and had been for almost six years. My mom died when I was two and Noah was six. Though I’ve seen pictures of her, I have no memories of her. Noah and I never talk about our dad, and we make sure he doesn’t know where we are.

Noah has never given me the whole story, but from what I gather he blackmailed our dad to get us out of his path. When I was fourteen Noah woke me up in the middle of the night. Beaten and bloody, he said we were leaving. I remember the broken skin on his knuckles and knew all the blood on him wasn’t just his. He had packed up his old battered Volvo and moved us as far from Seattle as he could on the fifty bucks he had.

I knew he stole so that we could survive until he got a job. We stayed with our aunt and uncle who knew enough of the situation to keep our dad from coming for us. Uncle Seth was Dad’s brother and from conversations I heard over the years, he hated our dad. Noah found a rundown studio apartment over the tattoo shop he was apprenticing at a month after we had moved and he took me with him without a fight from Uncle Seth or Aunt Celeste. He enrolled me in school and rode me hard about my grades so I could go to college. He told me that I had all the opportunity in the world and that the bad shit was behind us. I believed and trusted Noah my entire life, so I did as he said and graduated with honors.

It was Noah’s hard work and dedication to setting us free that gave me the drive to never let him down. Seth and Celeste checked on us often, their only stipulation for me staying with Noah, was that I stayed out of trouble and got good grades. I wasn’t about to let anyone take me from Noah, so I followed every rule set for me.

Now our house was on the bay, big and beautiful. Noah had busted his ass apprenticing as a tattoo artist and he made an incredible living at it. Once we got here he answered an ad for a bassist in an
Alice in Chains
cover band. Noah went to the audition and came back the bassist of the band. The band was now known as Thick as Thieves and they were a big deal in the state of Washington, the golden boys of Gig Harbor.

We were clean here.

This summer I was going to work on the beach, get a tan and meet wild, cute boys. Maybe I would even have an affair before heading back to school. It seemed like falling in love over the summer would be easy enough, and getting wild even easier. I would be twenty-one this summer with only a year left before graduating with my English degree. By next year I would be set to conquer the world as a struggling author. But this year, for once, was all about me.

My
iPhone
started playing ‘
No Excuses’
by
Alice in Chains
, the ringtone for my roommate and best friend, Candy. Candy wasn’t what anyone would expect from a girl named Candy. Her hair was short, just to her shoulders, and whiskey brown. She had green eyes and an uncanny ability to have anyone laying out their secrets within twenty minutes of meeting her. I had fallen victim to her more than once. On the same table that I laid my secrets out, there was always a bottle of tequila and a promise to take my secrets to her grave with her.

In my drunken state of tell all, I had once asked who in their right mind would name her Candy? Her reply was simple, accurate and so true.
‘Candy is sweet and loved by everyone. Some candy is soft and all melty sweet, and some is hard and makes you work for the good stuff. Well, Carrie Becket, the same is to be said of me. So in response to your question, my momma gave me my name, and I’m sure it suits just fine.’

My response had been lame by all standards.
‘I just assumed it was short for Candice or something.’

‘Well not all Mandy’s are Amanda’s, so not all Candy’s are Candice’s. Lesson learned.’

She was crazy and funny and unlike anyone I had ever met. I loved her immediately and have ever since.

I answered my phone with a familiar “Hello, darling.”

“Hello, lovekins.” She said as I looked at the clothes lying across the bed at my brother’s house. My mind is on the call with Candy, but my eyes are glaring at the new ‘uniform’ my aunt and uncle gave me last night when I received my schedule.

The Joint had always been a laid back, jeans and t-shirt, type of place, but with the boardwalk booming more each year, my aunt and uncle were desperate to make a statement. I hated that they bothered. The second I had my degree Noah and I were selling The Joint and using the money for his future and mine. Everything that was The Joint was tainted for us and held shit memories.

The only reason we hadn’t sold it to them yet was because of the stipulation in our mother’s will. It stated we would have a degree or trade before The Joint would be rightfully ours. When we got to Gig and met our dad’s brother Seth, we let them know it was theirs the minute we could unload it. They had taken over the business back when our mom died because dad was a policeman and had no desire to run The Joint. He did however, enjoy the fat check he got each month from the booming business.

“Is Gig Harbor new and improved since you came home? It’s sweltering out this morning ya know, maybe time for the beach already?”

“Sweltering?” I asked. Seriously, I don’t know where she gets this shit.

“Sweltering, yes. I am at said beach right now, and I have a very nice view in front of me.” I hear some rustling and wait for her to explain. When she doesn’t I see the game and play along.

“And the fine sight?”

“That would be one Chad Blake in the throes of a heated argument with Trina McKinney.”

I let out a low groan. She knows I find it impossible to breathe or even form a coherent thought in the presence of Chad Blake.

“Ooooh, she just slapped him.” She laughs and then curses. “Oh shit, I’m busted.” I hear her rustling again and then I hear her talking to Chad. Knowing her all too well, I drop the call and get back to unpacking. She could talk to Chad for hours about his band Thick as Thieves known through Washington as TAT. Chad was the lead singer and he also played the rhythm guitar. My brother, and only ally in this world, was the bassist as well as Chad’s best friend.

Chad and Noah became best friends the summer we moved to Gig Harbor from Seattle. He got his apprenticeship at Slave to the Needle, a tattoo shop in Gig that had just opened when he answered the ad Chad placed. Now they were both full-time artists at Slave to the Needle and the band’s success was well known, bringing them even more business. Noah had carved his path through hell and landed on a throne in Gig.

When the time came and we sold The Joint, we would provide Seth and Celeste both enough for early retirement. They had done right by us, the only family who had cared enough to keep us safe. Noah said he thought Uncle Seth knew about our dad after a drunken fishing trip he took just after we moved here, but he never really told me for sure.

My thoughts were interrupted when ‘No Excuses’ started playing again. “Get a good look at Noah?” I tease, knowing Noah is with Chad. For the last three years, whenever Candy and I are back home from UW, she is usually in my brother’s bed.

“Noah wasn’t here, it was just Chad. He said he was on his way to the shop when Trina pulled a stalker move.”

“Fangirl.” We both said in unison.

“So, listen my beautiful friend. I will be at the beach all day, basking in the beauty that is six-pack abs, but wanted to know when you would be joining me?”

Candy and Noah had a strange but working relationship. I think it worked for Noah to know Candy knew all of our shit past, but also that she didn’t have a need to settle down. She understood the band dynamic and that Noah would most likely never be faithful. They had decided that they were together, but not exclusive. How she could watch Noah kiss or touch another woman at a show was beyond me. I wasn’t even on Chad’s radar and I couldn’t stomach seeing him with anyone, least of all Trina.

“I need to go help Celeste with the books at four today, but I think I could use some beach time before then. Say an hour?”

“Well, make sure you wear the bikini I bought you so Chad can see that fine ass body of yours that you hide under all those baggy t-shirts. Once he can see the body matches the face, he might take notice.”

I knew what she meant by my body matching my face. I never perceived myself as ugly, but I didn’t flaunt my looks either. I dressed like the everyday girl in jeans and t-shirts or tank tops. Candy wore sundresses and short shorts. She shopped like it was a sport and loved fashion and all things girly. I liked being a woman and being soft, but I had spent too much of my life trying to
not
be sexy. It made it difficult when you actually wanted to be sexy, but didn’t know how.

“I am not wearing that elastic band you call a bikini. As president of the ittee-bittee-tittee-committee I don’t think it’s in my favor to point out where I’m lacking.”

I glanced at my chest in the mirror and cringed. It wasn’t like my breasts were non-existent, but they were smaller than I would have liked.

“You are fun sized baby. There is nothing wrong with your cute B-cup boobies.” Candy laughed.

“This, coming from your full C-cup.”

“Well, stuff that thing with those rubber things they sell at Victoria’s Secret and then you can be a C-cup too.”

I can’t stop myself from laughing at her, even though I know she is dead serious. “Stop. Me and my B-cup boobs are fine. I’ll be there in an hour. I just have to swing by the tattoo shop and see Noah.”

I hadn’t seen him since he was in Seattle two weeks ago when TAT had a show. Candy and I had gone out with a few girls from our dorm that night and I didn’t get into Gig until after two a.m.

“Well, go see big brother and I’ll see you in a while.”

“Ok, I’ll text when I’m on my way.”

“Oh, Carrie.” She said before I hung up.

“Yeah?”

“Bikini.”

“Goodbye.” I said and ended the call. I went to my bags and rifled through until I found my black maxi dress that went to my knees. I grabbed my simple black one piece, changed and headed off to Slave to the Needle to see my brother.

*

After spending some much needed time relaxing on the sand with Candy, I headed in for my shift at The Joint. I didn’t necessarily care for my work at The Joint. But it beat spending all my time hitting the stacks and cramming for finals, and I grabbed as many extra shifts as I could. The money was good compared to my pre-eighteen allowance or the money I got for school. Noah had made sure that my needs were met and left it at that. He said that anything else I needed he could get me when I was home in the summer. So while I was cramming for my English degree, I was given just what I needed to scrape by. I know I sound like a brat, but Noah made damn good money and didn’t share. I knew it was on principal and for my own good, but it sucked. He had always been cool in one thing though.

Music.

He paid for me to go to any concert or gig I wanted to go to without complaint… that, and he did my tattoos for free…well…all but one. I had gone to another artist for that one.