Текст книги "Crash"

Автор книги: Nicole Williams

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Are you going to get in trouble?” I whispered across the seat. Why I was whispering in my own car, I don’t know, but something about the dark, utilitarian building we were stopped in front of dictated hushed voices. “Don’t you guys have some kind of curfew?”

“Don’t you?” Jude teased, leaning across the console and tickling my side.

“Yeah, I do,” I said, jolting away from him. “And I’m past it. Plus, I’m grounded and not really minding the whole rules of being grounded. So I’m extra grounded now.”

“You were at your dance studio,” he said, clearing his throat, “perfecting your moves. How can your parents punish you for that?”

“You’re every kind of twisted,” I said, shoving his arm before glancing back at Last Chance Boys’ Home. Nothing about it seemed welcoming or warm or conducive to nurturing young boys into men. It looked like the kind of place you dared your friends to go up to on Halloween and ring the doorbell. “You sure you’re not going to get in trouble?” I looked at the time on the dashboard; not quite midnight, but close enough to count.

“Not as long as I use the back window and don’t get caught,” he said, reaching for the handle.

“Jude?” I said, winding my fingers around the steering wheel, looking for the right words.

“Yeah?” He let go of the handle and turned to face me.

“Just because I want to really try to make this whole thing work–”

“So do I,” he added.

“I just want to lay everything out on the table now before we go any farther.” I was nervous, and when I got nervous, my voice got all high.

“What do you want to know?” he asked, guessing I wasn’t looking for a life story, but fishing for something specific. He was right.

Taking in a breath, I pressed on. “Is there anyone from your past that could potentially come between us?” I said, peering over at him. “Anyone in your life I need to know about?”

Jude tilted his head, looking puzzled. “Are you talking about a girl?”

“Not specifically because I don’t know or want to know the girls of your past—I just need to know if there’s one you still have any kind of ties to.” I’d tried to flush Holly’s name from my brain all week long, but I was a woman; we didn’t just forget the names of our man’s ex flames.

“Hey,” he said, lowering his head until his face was level with mine. “There’s you, Luce. Only you. And don’t let anyone, most of all yourself, convince you otherwise.”

Everything inside me sighed with relief. “Okay, thanks,” I said, unwinding my fingers from the wheel.

“Anything else you want me to lay out on the table?”

Staring over at him, I wet my lips. “Nothing other than me.”

His eyes widened in surprise before he could recover. Chuckling, he said, “Anytime, Luce. Name the time and place. I’ll supply the table.”

“Make sure you disinfect that sucker first,” I called after him as he swung the door open. “I don’t want to catch whatever’s been laid out on the table before me.”

Pausing with his hand on the door, he suddenly turned and threw himself back in the car. His mouth was on mine before my heart could react and then, once it was trilling at flying speed, his mouth left mine. “Just you, Luce. No one else. There never has been.”

“That sounds like a convenient case of selective memory,” I said, wishing he’d come back and finish what he’d started.

“I try to only keep the happy memories,” he said, exiting the car. “If that’s what you call selective memories, I’m good with that.”

“Me too,” I replied after he’d left, watching him disappear into the dark or into the boys’ home, I couldn’t be sure.

It was becoming a familiar sight. One light burning in a window late at night, my mom’s silhouette behind it. I was either in deep shit or deeper shit coming home this late at night on the second to last night of my week long grounding sentence. Grabbing my bag, I shoved out of the Mazda and marched up the stairs, not even attempting to mask my footsteps.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked through that front door; knowing what to expect from mom was kind of like flipping a coin. In the morning she might be cold, removed, and act like I was the bane of humanity, and by evening she could be baking cookies and asking if I’d learned anything interesting in class that day.

For years I’d been able to predict her, I always knew what to expect, and could so accordingly tailor my life around that. Now, I couldn’t. For a teenager who, as a race, thrived on manipulating the routines and regimens of their parents so they could get away with all forms of hedonism, I should have been devastated beyond repair. But I wasn’t. Seeing the pieces of my mom, the one from my childhood, come back together, made me feel like maybe there was hope for our family after all. Maybe we could get back to what we were, never forgetting, but moving on.

It was a childish wish, but I held onto it.

Opening the door, I paused in the doorway, waiting for mom to spin on me, not sure if she was going to scold or smile at me. She did neither. Her attention was focused on her laptop and nothing else.

“Hey, mom,” I greeted, dropping my bag on a nearby chair. “I’m off to bed.”

“Lucy?” she said, sounding confused. Spinning in her desk chair, she glanced at me and then the clock on the wall behind me.  Her eyes bulged. “Are you just getting home?”

Great. She had just turned into my dad. Didn’t have a damn clue what was going on in her household, but was cordial enough not to raise her voice.

“Yeah,” I said, grabbing an apple from the counter. “I was at the dance studio practicing a new routine. Time totally got away from me. Sorry.” I was ashamed enough to hang my head. Lying was not something I wanted to list as a top skill on my resume one day.

“Oh, I see,” mom said, shoving her glasses on top of her head. “That’s all right, just call next time you’re going to be home so late, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, grabbing a couple cookies from the jar because I was, for the first time in a week, hungry. “Night, mom,” I said, charging up the stairs.

“Lucy, wait,” she said, grabbing something from her desk and crossing the room. “This came earlier today.” She was grinning, grinning. My mom had smiled before, but I couldn’t recall a time she’d grinned.

Glancing down at the stuffed manila folder she was holding, I understood why. My knees buckled right before I collapsed on the stairs.

“Juilliard,” she said, holding it out to me with both hands like it was an offering.

I’d been waiting for this for the past year. Well, I’d been waiting for this since the day I learned what Juilliard was all about. Here it was, waiting on the platter of my mom’s hands, deciding for me what future I would live.

Knowing one piece of mail had the final say in letting me live the dream I’d always wanted was crippling.

“This thing is pretty thick,” mom said, extending it closer, “and my psychic abilities are telling me this is a welcome packet. So tear this sucker open and let’s celebrate.”

Juilliard. Dance. Dreams. Future. It was all there, or not there, one envelope rip away. But I wasn’t ready for it.

“Thanks, mom,” I said, grabbing the packet and running up the stairs.

“You’re not going to open it?” she asked, looking at me like I’d caught a nasty case of crazy.

“Not now,” I said, yawning. “I’m exhausted and would probably fall asleep before I read the first paragraph. I’ll check it out tomorrow.”

“Lucy?” Her voice was tight, worried.

“I’m good, mom,” I said, looking down at her from the top stair. “I swear. I’m just beat. I promise you’ll be the first to know once I open this baby up.” I waved the packet at her.

“All right,” she said, followed up with a have it your way look. “Sometime I just can’t figure you out.”

“That makes two of us,” I mumbled, running all the way to my room.

The packet haunted me from my desk all weekend long. Mom didn’t push the issue and I just couldn’t find the balls to open some damn letter. I didn’t even mention it to Jude when he called first thing Saturday morning. I’d wanted to get together that night again, maybe dinner and a movie, or maybe picking up right where we’d left off in the ballet studio, but apparently, other than school-related functions, weekends at a boys’ home were synonymous with work.

So in between fighting an internal battle in my bedroom, I took a few walks and gritted my teeth and danced through the pain I’d inflicted Friday night. Monday morning couldn’t get here fast enough.

I parked the Mazda and was all clear through the metal detectors ten minutes before class began. The halls were empty save for a few zero hour students and tired eyed teachers. I knew better than to look for Jude this early before class, but it didn’t stop me from stopping by his locker to make sure. My frown was just forming in front of his empty locker when a strong hand grabbed mine and began leading me down the hallway.  I didn’t need to identify the grey thermal or the worn beanie to know whose hand held mine.

Jude didn’t say anything, he didn’t even glance back at me; he just powered through the hallway, shoving into a dark room at the end of the hall.

“Good morning to you too—” But my words were cut short as he shoved me up against a wall, his hands and mouth landing on me like they’d been starved all weekend.

I kissed him back, winding my arms around his neck. And then, because close wasn’t close enough, I put my dancer’s strength and flexibility to good use and leapt up, winding both legs around his hips. He groaned, pressing me harder against the wall, his mouth moving in and over mine with such fury I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care. In fact, passing out because Jude Ryder had been kissing the breath out of me sounded like something to add to the life goal list.

Right when I was certain this was it, this was the time and place we were going to go all the way, his mouth slowed at the same time he lowered me to the ground. Now was not the time for slowing down, not when everything was quickening in me, about to explode if we didn’t keep going.

I groaned when he pressed one final kiss into my mouth.

“Good morning,” he said, grinning like an idiot.

I groaned again when he took a step back.

“I missed you too.”

I tried to glare at him, but apparently it was a physical impossibility when the person who’d just kissed the living breath out of you was grinning in front of you. “You’re mean.”

“I know,” he said, brushing my hair back, “but the image of that got me through a long weekend. I needed that.”

“You’d been dreaming this up in your mind all weekend?” My stomach managed yet another flip-flop.

“That was all I thought about.”

Double flip and flop. “Did it meet your expectations?”

“Exceeded them,” he said, leaning in. “But in my dreams you were wearing this short school girl skirt and nothing underneath.” I felt his smile curve into place as he kissed my neck.

“Tomorrow’s another day,” I breathed, squeezing my legs together in agony. “Keep dreaming big.”

“Can do,” he whispered into my ear before sinking his teeth into my lobe.

“Don’t swallow my earring,” I said, my breath all ragged again. “I hear sterling silver can really upset a stomach.”

“No earring here,” he said, piercing another gentle bite into my ear.

I groaned again, but this time it was the frustrated kind. “Then it must have fallen out while you had me pinned against a wall,” I said, sending him a look as I dropped down to the floor, running my hands along the carpet.

“Are you sure you had one in?” he asked, scanning the floor above me. “I don’t remember seeing one.”

“I think you skipped through four senses this morning and barreled on through to touch.” I looked up at him, sitting up taller on my knees to take in more of the carpet. Class was about to start any minute and I’d cordon the entire room off before I left my favorite silver hoop behind.

Walking closer, he continued scanning the floor with me. “That does happen to be my favorite sense, by a landslide.”

“No kidding?” I said sarcastically, ready to get down on all floors and inspect the carpet a centimeter at a time.

“Oww!” I howled, snapping back up on my knees, hoping a chunk of hair hadn’t just been ripped out.

“Luce, wait. Don’t move,” Jude said, gripping my head in place. “Your hair’s caught on something.”

I tried pulling in the opposite direction, but my hair was caught good. “It’s caught on your buckle,” I said, begrudging fate that it would allow hair this short to be caught on such a small piece of metal.

“Stop moving,” he said, holding my head in place. “You’re only making it worse.”

I pulled back again, grimacing in pain. “Stop telling me what to do and start untangling it then.”

He laughed, trying to cut it short, but he couldn’t stop.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I said, looking up at him through a tangle of hair.

“I wish I could say I wasn’t, but I’d be lying,” he said in between his laughter.

“You’re so obnoxious,” I said, grabbing his hips and bracing myself for hair extraction.

Right as I was gritting my teeth, about to whip my head back, the door whined open, the overhead lights flashing on right after.

“Dude,” a voice said, stopping short in the doorway.

Another boy popped his head over the first’s shoulder. He lifted a cell phone and pointed it where I kneeled in front of Jude, hands on his hips, his hands on my head, and a flash went off. “This is so going on the internet.”

When all was said, done, and untangled, Jude’s and my picture did go viral, amassing about ten thousand hits all before the lunch bell rang. Two sophomores had their phones snapped in half and would never dare pass Jude alone in a hallway again, but otherwise Jude managed the unthinkable and kept his hellfire temper caged. Save for the phones and one innocent wall, Jude’s wrath fizzled short.

I was so surprised and impressed that he didn’t nosedive into a record setting explosion that I managed to stay pretty zen with the whole of Southpointe, as well as the western part of the country, getting an eyeful of our photo shoot. In fact, I didn’t even feel the urge to defend ourselves or explain what had actually transpired before I wound up on my knees, hands at his hips, head at his zipper because, well . . . no one in their right mind would believe the truth.

So I endured yet another flood of stares and whispers, girls looking at me like I was the red light hussy spawned of the devil here to decimate the world, and guys looking at me with dilated eyes and tipped smiles, like they were imagining me on my knees in front of them. The girls I got, they were just worked up because if I’d done it once, what was to stop me from blowing their boyfriends in the bio lab? I got that kind of disdain because I was a girl. However, the guys were just horn dogs, salivating to hump whoever and whatever they could. A couple of the repeat offenders I flipped off in passing.

“Hey, Morrison!” Jude slid into line next to me, hollering at the guy a few people in front of me who was staring at me in a familiar way. “Turn your eyes unless you want to lose them.”

Morrison tilted his chin at Jude. “Ryder, you are one lucky son of a bitch.”

An urge that was almost impossible to resist arose, ordering me to throw my bowl of red jello topped by a dollop of whipped cream straight at Morrison’s smug face. Point blank.

Jude moved in front of me, pressing me behind him with his forearm. “If you’re referring to the fact that my girlfriend is an intelligent, classy, sweet, righteous girl, you’d be right,” he said, squaring himself at Morrison, “but if you’re referencing anything less than honorable, then you might want to make some adjustments to your college applications because I don’t think Arizona State’s going to want you if you can’t run the ball.”

Morrison flipped Jude a salute and turned around, as a round of laughter passed through his trio of friends in the lunch line.

“Lace curtain bastards,” Jude muttered, glaring at the back of their heads. “I hear of any of them running their mouths or their eyes over you again and I’m going to show them how we do things at the bottom feeder level.”

Shoving my way around him, I turned on him. “Does that sound like someone who’s committed to staying on the good side of the law?” I asked, shuffling a piece of pizza onto my tray. “Does that sound like someone who promised their . . .”

“Girlfriend,” he filled in the blank, winding his arms around me.

“Their girlfriend they wouldn’t do anything to mess this up? Because going to jail for attempted manslaughter might be considered messing up to some people.”

“Woman,” he exhaled, resting his cheek against mine, “you are busting my balls. In every way.”

“What was that promise you were about to make me about not touching Morrison and his bunch of half breeds?” I said, paying the lunch lady who wasn’t even trying to mask the judgment in her eyes. Someone else had seen our photo.

“Fine,” he relented, steering me towards the courtyard. He’d either read my mind or felt the same way I did: tired of the looks and sick of dodging questions. “I won’t touch the Jerk-off Jockeys.” Grabbing the door handle, he swung it open for me. “But I can’t promise I won’t pay someone else to touch them,” he added as I passed by.

I jabbed him in the stomach.

“I found your earring,” he said, pulling my silver hoop from his pocket.

“Where was it?” I asked, taking it and sliding it back into place.

“Tucked inside my boxers.”

“How the hell did it wind up there?” I asked, going all soft thinking about his boxers.

“Don’t know,” he said as we walked about the mostly empty courtyard, “but let’s just say I was close to becoming pierced. Down there.”

I laughed, giving the missing earring a pat. She’d had a better morning than I had. No one glanced up at us as we walked across the grass and settled onto an empty table. It was a cool day, the kind where you wished you packed a sweater, but as Jude hung his arm around me, I found myself hoping I’d never have to pack a sweater another day in my life.

“Girlfriend, huh?” I said, setting the pizza in front of him.

“Girlfriend,” he stated. “No question mark.”

I smiled into my tray. “What number does that make me?”

He sighed. “One. And only. I told you before, Luce. You’re my first and, God willing I don’t screw this up, my last.”

It was a good thing I hadn’t just sunk my teeth into the apple in my hand because I would have choked on it. It should have freaked me out beyond repair, my boyfriend who’d been to jail three times as many times as we’d been on dates, tossing forever into normal conversation, but it didn’t. He wasn’t saying marriage tomorrow and a baby the day after; he was saying someday, maybe. And someday, maybe sounded appealing to me in ways a seventeen year old girl with dreams of a bright future shouldn’t.

“How many girls have you been with, Jude?” I said, asking the positively worst question a girl should ask a guy like Jude. I was hoping for a number less than fifty.

He lowered the slice of pizza before taking a bite. “Enough to know when something special comes along.”

“And if you were to quantify enough, that number would be . . .” I dropped my apple too. With this kind of conversation circling about, decreased appetites were an expected side-effect.

“Luce, I don’t want to talk about my past anymore. I don’t want to hash out over and over again how many times I’ve screwed things up,” he said, his hands clenching into fists. “I know you girls have some sick fascination with knowing the name, time, and how we screwed the girls before you, but I’m not giving that to you. It was a lot, probably even a lot more than the number you’ve got in your head,”—my stomach clenched–“but I didn’t love a single one of them and not a single one of them loved me either.”

“Sounds romantic,” I muttered, shoving my tray away.

“You’re the one that wanted to know,” he said, straddling the bench to face me. “Listen, with a guy like me, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, Luce, because I’m going to do my damndest to be honest with you. Don’t delve into my past unless you want to come out on the other side wishing you hadn’t.”

I’d learned that a while ago, but how could you have a relationship with someone you didn’t know on a past, present, and future tense level? “So if you didn’t care for any of them and none of them cared for you, why did you . . .” every term bouncing to mind was just wrong, “do it?”

“You want to know this?” he asked, challenging me with his eyes. “You really want to know this kind of stuff?”

I nodded once because I was a stupid girl.

Jude’s nod echoed mine. “For me, it was an escape. A way to forget my life was an abyss of shit for a little while. And for the girls,” he said, lifting his shoulders, “they were looking to piss off their mayor and physician parents when they discovered their precious daughters were screwing the quintessential bad boy. That, or they just were really hot for me and wanted to know what I was like in the sack.” His smile curled up on one side which I put to a quick end as my elbow connected with his stomach.

“This isn’t funny,” I scolded, scowling at the picnic table because it was impossible to scowl into his face.

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughed, rubbing my arms. “Sometimes the only way I can get through reminiscing about my shitty life is through humor,” he said, turning my face upward. “But the humorless, honest truth is that I didn’t care about them, and they didn’t care about me.” He stared hard into my eyes, and he couldn’t look at me the way he was now and not be honest.

“Okay,” I said, relieved this topic was officially off the books now.

“And if it helps you to know, the sex was unfulfilling and unsatisfactory.”

“It doesn’t help, but thanks for the foot note,” I said, snatching my apple back up.

“You know, it seems like you and me are either kissing the shit out of each other or discussing topics that are better kept in the graves they were buried in,” he said, chewing off a bite of pizza. “Why can’t we just have normal, everyday conversation?”

I chewed this over while I chewed my apple. “You’re right,” I said. “How can you be my boyfriend if I don’t know your political views, or what you think about the weather, or what you thought of the last movie you saw at the theater.”

“Point taken,” he laughed, chugging an entire can of pop in five seconds flat. “Screw the everyday crap. And the rotting corpse topics too. Just keep kissing me, or whatever else you might have in mind,” he said, wagging his brows, “until you’ve stockpiled enough crazy on my brain shelf I can’t talk straight anymore.”

“That sounds like a fulfilling relationship,” I said, turning and straddling the bench to face him. He was right about one thing; I was done with the whole talking thing this lunch hour.

The pizza slipped from his hands and hit the ground. “I’ll show you fulfilling,” he said, staring at my mouth.

His mouth was so close to touching mine I could already taste it when a backpack slammed down on the table across from us.

“Hey, Lucy.”

“Lord help me.”

Jude and Sawyer’s sentences overlapped each other as they both turned to each other.

“Ryder,” Sawyer said, sticking out his hand. It hung there a while before Sawyer stuck it in his pocket. “How’s it going?”

“It was going fantastically.”

I nudged his leg with mine in warning. So far, Sawyer was playing fair.

“Of course,” Sawyer said, looking between the two of us. “Sorry for interrupting you two. I just wanted to say something and then I’ll leave you to it.”

“Well,” Jude said, tying his arms around me. So territorial. “Say something.”

Sawyer smiled. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea if you heard about me taking Lucy home after Homecoming. I saw a friend who needed help and I helped her. I know she’s your girl, Jude.”

“So does that mean you’ll stop staring at her every time you see her in the hall?” Jude asked, staring at Sawyer.

“I’ll try,” he said, stretching his neck. “She’s a beautiful girl, Ryder. You’re a lucky man.”

“Don’t tell me what I have like I don’t know it,” Jude said, his arms stiffening.

“Jude,” I warned.

“Wow, easy, big guy,” Sawyer said, lifting his hands and walking backwards. “I didn’t mean to offend you, just wanted to say my piece and get to lunch.” Looking at me, his smile tipped higher. “See you in fifth period, Lucy.”

I shot him a wave as he turned and shoved through the door.

“I didn’t think I could hate that shithead more, but I should’ve known a dick of that degree has no hate limit.” Jude glared at the door Sawyer had walked through.

“Has anyone ever mentioned you might have anger issues?” I said, looking up at him. From the look of hatred in Jude’s eyes, you would have thought he’d never loathed anyone more.

Jude’s face softened just barely. “Only a few dozen times a year since puberty.”

Curling my fingers through his, I took another bite of apple. “What has Sawyer Diamond done to make you that pissed every time you see him?” I said, crunching apple bits. “Because, other than him having an overinflated sense of self and a smile so white it doesn’t register on the color palette, he doesn’t seem like that bad of a guy to me.”

Jude spun on me, his eyes bleeding to black. “Sawyer Diamond is what happens when god turns his head for one second. A guy like that doesn’t deserve second chances, or mercy, or understanding, especially from a girl like you, Luce, because he will twist that into something he can use to manipulate you.” His hands braced around my arms, holding me tight. “I want you to stay away from him, Luce. Don’t talk to him, or look at him, or acknowledge him in any way. You got me? Because he can deny it all he wants and pretends he’s a cheerleader for you and me, but he wants you so damn bad he’s probably off in the guy’s room jacking off right now.”

“Ew, Jude,” I said, making a face. “Gross.”

“Just stay away from him, Luce,” he said. “I’ve known that dick for ten years now and I can tell when he’s up to something. And he’s up to something.”

The lunch bell rang. We both groaned, tossing our half eaten lunches into the garbage. “I have three classes with the guy, how am I supposed to stay away from him?” I asked, while Jude wrangled up our bags and slung them over his back.

“I want you to kick him in the nuts every time you see him,” he said, not a trace of teasing in his voice, “and after a few of those, he’ll stay away from you.”

“Now why didn’t I think of that?” I said, thumping the palm of my hand against my forehead.

“Because you’re sweet and innocent and don’t know about sinister things like deflecting dirtbags,” he said, opening the courtyard door for me. “Leave the dirty work to me, Luce. You stay your sweet self.”

“And nut kicking isn’t considered dirty work in your world?”

“If it’s Sawyer Diamond’s balls we’re talking about kicking,” he said, grinning to himself, “that’s just plain fun.”