Текст книги "The Singles"
Автор книги: Emily Snow
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Текущая страница: 40 (всего у книги 45 страниц)
Chapter Eighteen
The thing about sex is that it instantly changes things. People will say it doesn’t—and even I’m guilty of muttering those words once or twice—but there’s no way to give someone control of your body, to take over theirs, and not be transformed in some way, whether that change is small or significant.
As Rhys and I lie beside each other with the tips of our fingers touching and the sweet sparks of electricity bursting between us, there is no doubt in my mind that everything is different for us.
“That was—” He releases a breath, breaking the silence. “God, girl, you’re amazing.” I smile to myself and drag my feet back and forth over the rumpled sheets until he stills me by trapping my legs between his. “Did you hear me? You. Are. Amazing.”
“Oh, yeah? So are you.” His hand finds my hip, and he turns me toward him, rubbing his lips over the tip of my nose. “And just think,” I whisper, “we could’ve been amazing each other all along.”
He throws his head back and laughs, giving me the chance to push my lips to the rough column of his throat as I skim my nails over the muscles of his chest. He catches my wrist with his hand. Holding me close to him, he lowers his chin until his sea blue eyes are staring right into mine. “We should have.”
For a long time after that, we’re quiet until the sound of his phone vibrating on the nightstand pulls us out of the daze. Leaning over me, he grabs it and touches his finger to his lips for me to keep quiet.
“Hey, beautiful,” he answers with a smile, and I feel my own expression of pure satisfaction fade into a frown. At first I feel a surge of panic, and anger, but then I can clearly hear an enthusiastic child’s voice on the other end, and I relax against the pillows. “My niece,” he mouths.
Not wanting to sit in on a private conversation with his family, I climb off the bed and pad out of his room in search of the bathroom. I’d been too preoccupied on the way in, but I find it relatively quickly—a couple doors down from his bedroom. Grabbing a washcloth from the neat stack piled up on the storage rack, I clean up carefully, wincing at how sore and tender my flesh is when my fingers touch it.
“Rhys Delane,” I whisper softly, glancing back in the direction of his bedroom, “you are most definitely incredible.”
Dropping the cloth in the brown wicker hamper by the door that’s halfway full of used linens, I examine myself closely in the mirror. I trace my finger around my kiss-swollen lips. Glide my knuckles across my hot, flushed skin. And finally, I touch my hair, which is framing my face in messy waves. I start to run my fingers through it to give it some order, but then I decide against it. When I return to the bedroom, he’s off the phone and is sitting up in the bed.
He’s gotten rid of the condom, but he’s still stark naked with no sheets or bedspreads covering him—which, of course, I don’t mind at all.
He holds out a muscular arm to me, beckoning me to him. “Come here,” he says and drags me onto his lap to straddle him when I comply. “Sorry about that. She always calls before bedtime, and—”
I had forgotten just how early in the evening it still is, which only manages to make me crazy with anticipation. God, what’s he done to me? “Don’t say sorry.” I press my lips to his, but pull back when he hesitates to respond. I bite the inside of my cheek, studying his face carefully, before I finally ask, “What’s wrong?”
The corners of his lips twist into a tight smile. “Just family bullshit. It never ends.”
He told me once before that his mother and niece were the only family he has left, so I shift one of my eyebrows in concern. “Everything alright?” At first, he’s reluctant to say anything, but at my urging he pulls me closer and lets out a frustrated breath against my chest.
“I talked to my mom for a couple minutes. My niece’s mother is trying for custody again,” he explains, rubbing his hands up and down my bare arms. I shiver and mold against him. “She lost custody of Stacey a few months after my brother went to prison. Then she married a mean ass drunk—and she’s not much better herself—so there’s no fucking way I’m letting that happen.”
“Oh,” I whisper, tilting away from him and hoping he doesn’t see how rigid my body has gone. No. No. NO. Suddenly, I regret asking him to tell me what was bothering him because I absolutely do not want to discuss his brother right after what we just shared.
He only takes my silence as an invitation to continue baring his soul to me. “My brother Owen was a drunk, too.” He touches the tiny scar beneath his right eye, feathering his fingers over it. “A gift, after we got into a fight right after Stacey was born. He tried to take off with her in the car after downing a bottle of Jim Beam.”
Oh God. “Rhys, I—”
“And then, he ended up going to prison for running some poor kid down a couple years ago and leaving her for dead,” he tells me brokenly, and I feel my head start to shake from side to side. “My niece’s mother is the same way, and she thinks she can drag Stacey back into that shit.” His jaw clenches in anger, and deep inside of me, I feel that same fury hurtling through me.
Because that poor kid Owen Delane had run down was my sister—older than me by a mere 10 months. What Rhys says next only makes everything worse, makes my heart fall to the pit of my stomach.
“I used to bail him out. I was stupid enough to bail that motherfucker out time and time again because I thought he could change. He didn’t change, which is why I cut him out of my life.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t. Fucking. Breathe. Somehow, though, I manage to blurt out, “What?”
“He’d get picked up for drunk driving, and I’d scrimp together whatever I had to get his ass out. The week before—” he starts, but I can’t hear any more of this, and I cover his lips with my fingers. “Jesus,” he growls and rubs his hand over his face. “What the hell am I doing? I’m ruining this for you, Evelyn, and I’m so sorry—”
But I’m already stumbling off of him, shaking my head. “This can’t happen again,” I say, my voice anything but confident, my breathing anything but calm. Calm and confident flew out the window the second Rhys pulled me through that door earlier and into his arms. I swing my legs over the side of his bed and slide my feet around on the thin carpet in search of my boots. “This will never happen again.”
Ugh, where the hell are those shoes?
“Is it because I’m letting you in?” he demands angrily, coming up off the bed after me. “Letting you into my world?”
Oh Rhys, you don’t even know the half of it.
“I just—” I struggle to find the right word, and then I drag my hands through my hair and release a sob from the back of my throat. “I’m sorry, Rhys. I’m so sorry.”
“I hear you.” He flicks on the dim lamp, and I finally spot the bright red toe of one of my boots poking out from beneath the bed. I can feel his gaze—full of heat and anger and pain—tracing my every movement as I finish getting dressed. My face is on fire, and to my mortification, so is my body.
The same body that, not even a half an hour ago, Rhys had laid claim to.
I need to reestablish those invisible boundaries I should have placed between us the moment I realized who he was. But first, and this is so damn important, I need to get the hell out of Rhys’ apartment. My sanity depends on it.
As I jerk my second boot on and stumble to his bedroom door, Rhys’ voice pours over me. “Before you go ... I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t let you know I’m holding your panties.”
My words are clipped and low as I stalk over to his bed. “We shouldn’t do—”
“In case you haven’t figured it out, I don’t care about what we should or shouldn’t be doing anymore,” he says, and for a moment, I want to tell him everything so he’ll understand. Instead, I hold my hand out. To my surprise, he immediately drops my panties in my open palm. Then he looks me square in the eye and says, “Stay the night.”
This is so wrong. So wrong. I came here to escape from my reality tonight, and this is where I am: diving face down in it. As I shake my head, my hair falls over my eyes.
“I’ll call you later,” I mutter.
Once again, he stops me just before I can open the door, his voice low and taunting when he says, “Guess you called it right, Evelyn.”
Even though I know it’s exactly what he wants, I flash him a look over my shoulder. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his forearms on his thighs, his bare, muscular shoulders relaxed and one of his eyebrows arched high as he regards me carefully.
God, he looks so ridiculously sexy.
And forbidden.
“Excuse me?” I demand.
“First day I sat in on Cameron’s Sight Singing & Dictation course and we were introducing ourselves. When I asked about you, you looked at me and said, ‘I wreck things’. That’s what you’re doing right now, isn’t it?”
Shaking my head, I release a harsh laugh. “There’s nothing between us to wreck, Rhys.”
But there is.
There is so much, and he knows it.
He must realize what I’m thinking because there’s a look of accomplishment in his sea blue eyes that drives me crazy and makes me want to slap him. “Maybe.” The corners of his mouth twitch into a beautiful, sardonic grin that rips me to shreds. “Still doesn’t change the fact that you came here tonight,” he muses aloud.
He’s tearing me apart here, and I cover my face with my hands. “What do you want from me?” I moan into my palms, and his reply is simple.
“More of you.”
My lips part slightly, but I stop myself before I say something I’ll regret. I pull in a short breath that sets my throat on fire. Finally, I meet those unnerving blue-green eyes, and everything else fades, no breathing, no sound of the rain outside his window—nothing exists when he’s looking at me like I owe him something.
And then, I realize something: I will lose with Rhys Delane.
I will lose my head, my heart. He’s changed everything, and I don’t know how or why or when I let this happen.
Rhys wants to take things from me that I absolutely can’t give him.
“You’ve already slept with me.” My voice is purposely void of any emotion, and although his face remains calm, I know I’ve managed to cut him. It’s obvious by how quickly his stare turns frigid. “You have enough.”
And he does. Because now that I think about it—and even though he’s yet to realize it—I’ve already lost with Rhys Delane. It just took me this long to figure that out.
“Come back to bed. Come back to me,” he implores softly, his touch even gentler when he comes across the room to pull me to him. I don’t fight him. I can’t. Because it goes back to that thing about everything changing with sex—now that I realize I’m lost, I don’t even stand a chance.
And because in some messed up, awful way, Rhys and I need each other—we’re both stuck in a repetitive loop, blaming ourselves for things we no longer have the power to change.
Chapter Nineteen
Two Years Ago
Ever since the bus dropped me off two hours ago, I’ve been telling myself that in just five more minutes I’m going to start my trig homework. Instead, I spent an hour of that time screwing off on Facebook, another thirty minutes making two new playlists, and then the other half hour on the phone with my friend Sophie. At this point, I’m about 99.9 percent sure no productivity will be happening on the school front tonight, so I shove my textbook and untouched worksheet back inside my backpack and drop the bag in my closet.
“Everlasting Light,” the ringtone I’ve assigned to my boyfriend James starts playing, and I answer with a wide grin. “You in Kingsport yet?” He was supposed to be riding to a nearby town to look at a car this afternoon, and I didn’t expect to hear from him until late tonight.
“Change of plans,” he informs me, and I raise my eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. “Can you distract your mom long enough for me to come in through the basement?”
Grinning, I let out an excited shriek, and I’m already nodding before I say, “When will you be here?”
“Give me fifteen?”
“Alright, I’m going downstairs right now,” I promise. As soon as I hang up, I check my hair in the mirror hanging over my dresser, dousing the unruly locks with frizz tamer. The sound of my phone going off again stops me before I can put my hair into a ponytail holder, and I press my lips into a tight line as I listen to OneRepublic’s “All the Right Moves”—the ringtone I’ve set for my sister.
What the hell does she want?
I almost don’t answer her call, but then I release an irritated sigh, sink down in my computer chair, and hit Accept.
“What?” I answer sharply. I can barely hear what she’s saying because the only noise coming from the other end is that of wind, and I jab my tongue in my cheek. “Can you not call me when you’re out running? Speaking of which, why are you still running? Isn’t your meet already over?”
The fussy noise slowly fades away, and then I hear Lily breathing heavily. “I’m not running, I’m walking,” she explains. “Hey, can you do me a favor and come get me? I was supposed to get a ride home with Meredith, but she didn’t show up to school today.” My sister’s own car had been in the body shop at my dad’s dealership for the last couple days, and she’s been relying on rides from her friends to get home.
“I’m grounded from my car, remember?” I tell her dryly. “So unless you want me to borrow Mom’s bike to come get you, I think you’re screwed.” Of course, we both know very well that our mom would gladly hand my keys over when it comes to Lily.
In Mom’s eyes, Lily can do no wrong.
“Don’t be like that, Evie,” my sister says gently, and I feel a pang of guilt for being so rude to her. “I didn’t mean to tell her. It just ... happened.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I check the time on my alarm clock. “You know, I wouldn’t have sold you out.” Closing my laptop and getting up, I shrug. “But it is what it is. Should I tell Mom to come pick you up? Or better yet, why don’t you just jog since you like running so damn much?”
She seems to think on both of my suggestions for a second before dragging in a deep breath. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll just walk—it’s not that far.”
“Exactly,” I say, “you’ll be fine.”
Lily laughs softly, and I can imagine she’s shaking her head right now. “I love you, beautiful sister. Even if you are being a baby right now. I’ll talk to you tonight, okay?”
Whatever. Rolling my eyes, I hang up. Then I leave my phone face down on my desk to go downstairs and distract my mother while James sneaks in.
Chapter Twenty
Now
The second “anniversary” of my sister’s death comes almost too quietly, and I leave Rhys’ apartment as soon as the first strains of light peek through his bedroom window. Although I know I’ll probably spend the majority of my fall break with him, this is the only day that I reserve exclusively for myself. He’s grieving too—I saw that much in his eyes last night as he held me close to him. Still, I can’t quite trust myself to be with him today when the only thing I’ll be able to think about is Lily.
It would be unfair to them both.
For the umpteenth time in the last several months, I reactivate my social media accounts but this time with the sole purpose of hunting down photos of my sister. My Facebook page is full of pictures of me with my friends, and I feel a pinch in my chest as I realize that I haven’t spoken to many of these people in months, haven’t even given them a second thought. But that pain in my heart—it’s nothing compared to the raw, desperate ache that encompasses me when I realize that I only have three pictures with my sister.
Just three, and in two of those we weren’t even focused toward the camera.
“What the hell was wrong with me?” I ask myself aloud in the emptiness of my room.
My hands are shaking as I click on her old page. She stares back at me from her profile picture, her dark blond hair tousled and flipped over her shoulder, her index finger held beneath her nostrils with a moustache drawn on it with a Sharpie. She’s intentionally making a duck face, and I vividly remember the day she asked me to take the photo.
“You look like an idiot,” I’d told her as I took her phone from her outstretched hand, and she grinned before resuming her ridiculous expression.
“That’s the point. Now, hurry up and take it before my lips go numb.”
As agonizing as it is, the memory still manages to bring a smile to my lips as I scroll through all the recent posts on her Wall from people who knew her, who haven’t forgotten her. Who’ve hung on to those memories she made with them. Reading these posts only make me miss her that much more.
I startle when I hear a loud ding. Dropping my gaze to the bottom of the screen, I cringe. James has sent me a message.
James Rowan: Hey, Evie ... I saw you were on—it’s been awhile. I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from today, but I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. I miss Lily too. No matter what happened between us, I am always around if you need me. You take care of yourself.
He probably expects for me to flat out ignore him, but I’m feeling sentimental today. My reply is quick and simple—Thank you, James. You take care of yourself too. Then I turn off chat because there’s really no point in saying anything more.
After I turn on some music, I slowly start the process of going through Lily’s photos. There are so many folders and tags that I nearly miss the folder titled ME & E.V. I open it, feeling a fist grinding inside my ribcage as pictures of us smile back at me. She’d posted a little of everything—the two of us fully decked out in winter gear and covered in snow during the ski trip we took during freshman year; a picture of me flipping off the camera with Lily giving me the side eye; a photo of us at junior prom taken just five months before she passed away.
I save every single photo of us together and choose a silly shot of us posing like Bond Girls by the pool at my parents’ house for my desktop background. I stare at it until my vision begins to blur, and finally, the tears start flowing freely down my cheeks.
I miss her. And I would give anything to change things, to change how I treated her.
***
In the days after that, things slowly start to creep back to normal. My suitemates and Corinne all come back to school on Tuesday along with everyone else returning from fall break. Although I miss her arrival thanks to being with Rhys at his apartment, as soon as I step into our room a little after ten, Corinne hops up from her bed with her curly hair flying all around her face. Her embrace knocks the wind out of me, and I stagger back.
“I got your messages,” she says breathlessly against my shoulder, “but things were so crazy I didn’t have a chance to call you back. I’m sorry.”
I lean away from her to find that she’s wearing a tiny smile. Still, the pain of the last week and a half is clearly visible in her green eyes. My chest is tight as I shake my head. “Don’t even worry about it.” Releasing her, I sit on the edge of my bed, and she follows suit. “How are your mom and sisters doing?”
Swallowing hard, she tilts her head to the side. “A little better. My mom is going to stay with my oldest sister and her family for a few weeks so she can get her head on straight. She asked me if I wanted to take a little time off school.” Letting out a choked sound, she shakes her head like she’s still trying to convince herself it’s a bad idea. “I think that would just make things worse for me. I’d rather be around other people who can take my mind off things.”
“Sounds smart.”
“What about you—what did you do during break?”
Aside from that one day I spent alone, my break was full of Rhys Delane—so much that my body is still feeling the effect of him. In an attempt to hide the flush that stains my skin, I glance down at my lap. “I played catch-up on some school work.”
Corinne doesn’t look the least bit convinced, and she inhales deeply. “You smell like cologne,” she points out.
“So.” I give her a piercing look. “Do you go around randomly sniffing cologne?”
Granting me the first genuine grin I’ve seen from her since before the break, she rests her forearms on her thighs and laughs. “No, but I do sniff good-smelling guys when they come to my room asking me to give my roommate a message.” Before I can get in a single word, she holds up her hand and squeezes her eyes shut. “You don’t even have to tell me. As long as your break was amazing—that’s all that matters.”
For the most part, it was, and I nod swiftly.
Stretching out on her bed, she stares up at the ceiling. “My boyfriend—or ex-boyfriend, whatever you want to call him—came over while he was in town for break. We talked for hours, and I told him about Daniel and Elliot and he gave me his ... list. I think we’re going to try to make the long distance thing work.”
“Really?”
“Mmm hmm. The way I see it, it’s kind of silly to care about someone—genuinely care about them—and force yourselves apart just because you don’t think you can handle things.”
Stunned, I shake my head. “You leave for ten days and come back all philosophical.”
She’s quiet for a few moments but then she finally props herself up on her elbows and smiles sheepishly at me. “Actually ... he said that, I’m only paraphrasing.”
***
After Professor Cameron introduces me to the music she’s expecting me to sing for finals at the end of the semester—two pieces that are significantly more challenging than what I performed for my midterm—I finally get a taste of what Mac’s been warning me about.
“I’m terrified of this one,” I tell Rhys nearly three weeks after fall break is over. I try like hell not to start banging my forehead against the metal music stand in front of me. “I sound like a dying animal,” I add, and he chuckles from his spot behind the piano.
“You’re dramatic.” His lips move into a slow grin at the pointed look I give him. “You aced your performance midterm, so what makes you think you won’t do it again?”
Swiping up the sheet music, I wave it around. “Oh, I don’t know. The fact I can’t even hit half the notes.”
His thick eyebrows arch. “You did just fine a minute ago.” He spreads his fingers apart and plays a few notes, which I instantly recognize as Sia’s “I Go To Sleep”—one of the songs that had been playing on the iPod in my car just a few days ago when we somehow managed to turn the backseat, and part of the front, into a makeshift bed. It had taken some extreme acrobatics on my part, and the thought makes the back of my throat go dry.
“You will do fine,” he promises, his blue-green eyes hot against my skin as he continues to run his fingers over the keys.
I clench my thighs together, trying to deny that he’s made me wet just by banging on a few keys. “Do you have to play that song?” I demand pleadingly. He nods, changing the tempo. Each stroke of his fingers speeds my pulse up a notch. Turning away from him, I start to pace the tiny room, from where he sits to the time log hanging beside the door and then back again. Finally, I rest my elbow on the piano and slide my knee onto the bench until it bumps his leg.
He’s grinning.
Wickedly.
“I don’t think about practicing with you playing that song,” I warn him. “We should get back to work before I end up jumping you right here and now.”
He responds by playing something different. I hear the first few chords of “Everlong” which only makes the need coursing through me so much stronger. He tilts his head to the side, gazing at me. It starts at the ripped denim at my left thigh, drifts past the soft slope of my hips, and, finally, lingers on the swell of my breasts beneath my fitted black tee.
I draw in a deep, impatient breath. “Dammit, Rhys.”
“Want me to play something else?” he asks in a low voice as our eyes meet. When I shake my head, he gives me a wounded look and nods to the sheet music I’m gripping. “I guess you’re right. We should get back to work.”
“Screw work,” I mutter and drop the sheet music. I’m on him before he can protest, straddling him on the piano bench and wrapping my long legs tightly around him. I close my eyes and let him take my breath away with his mouth.
“You. Are. Killing. Me,” he grinds out. “I can’t get enough of you.”
“Please don’t,” I whisper breathlessly as he scoots the bench back in one swift motion. I give his zipper a hard jerk. Rolling myself off his body, I drag his pants down just enough for his erection to spring free and sink down on my knees in front of him. “I don’t want you to get enough of me,” I say as I lower my face and place a demure kiss on the head of his erection.
“You drive me crazy,” he swears. He fists my hair in his hands and draws my head back, so I use my hand instead—wrapping my fingers around him tightly and jerking hard. He draws in a breath, and a little wave of pleasure crashes through me. Never blinking, I stare into his eyes and move my hand up and down his shaft.
Finally, letting out a deep sound of frustration, he pushes my head down so that my lips skim his flesh. “Suck,” he says simply.
I push him into my mouth until he’s pressed against the back of my throat. Gripping the pockets of his jeans for support, I bob my head up and down. There’s something about doing this to him—listening to his thick moans of gratification and belligerent words of desire—that does it for me. I get off on feeling his hands in my hair and his eyes staring down on me, as I taste him.
“Jesus, Evel—” he groans, but the soft creak of the door opening followed by a sharp gasp muffles whatever he’s saying. It takes me a moment to process that we’ve been caught, and then, I stumble away from him. Covering my mouth with my hand, I start to turn my back to the intruders in embarrassment but not before I meet Mac’s wide brown eyes and that of the tall, skinny guy standing beside her.
“Ahh shit,” she mutters. Then, shoving the guy out the practice room, she slams the door behind them.
