Called Up (12 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The thing about mind-blowing sex was that it was, actually, mind-blowing, and it wasn’t until they were halfway back to Lola’s house that Deke realized there’d been a point to heading out to the fishing hole and it wasn’t to get naked.

Dude
, the tiny little devil said,
it was inevitable.

At least you had a condom
, the angel chimed in.

And Jeremy Renner was just hovering over them all with his brawny arms folded across the sash on his chest and a smug look on his face.

“You’re all freaking fired,” Deke muttered.

“Did you just say something?” Fitz asked.

Well, shouted, because he had the Jeep’s top down and that wasn’t exactly conducive to conversation. He shook his head.

She looked at him for a minute—he could feel her eyes on him—but he made sure not to meet her gaze. Not out of avoidance. She was very possibly the first woman he’d ever slept with he actually
wanted
to talk to about something other than sex or baseball. For days on end, in fact. But that was the problem. He
had
meant to talk to her. It had been the whole plan. Then he’d fallen into the deep, dark chasm of those glorious eyes and, well, so much for that idea.

Ten minutes later they were pulling to a stop in Lola’s driveway. The late morning sun brought out the highlights in her hair, and... Oh, fucking shit. How was it possible for him to go so hard just from a quick glance down at her lips?

Possibly because you’re an ass and thinking about what it would feel like to have her mouth on your dick?

Freaking devil.

Deke forced himself to look at Lola’s soon-to-be-red front door instead.

“So, how many times have you had sex in this car?” Fitz asked.

Deke turned to her. “
What?
”

“I mean...” She shrugged. “The seats are down in the back so there’s all that room, condoms within reach, and there’s no way to have any awkward after-sex ‘where do we go from here’ conversations when you’re driving with the top down. It’s like the perfect sex-mobile.”

She didn’t seem upset, just amused.

She was a little bit right, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “I don’t like clutter, so both my Jeep and my truck are clean...” As she well knew, having spent quite a bit of time in both of them. “Any guy in his right mind always has a condom in his wallet.” Duh. “Plus, you’ve never had a problem talking to me when we’re driving in the Jeep with the top down.”

Okay, yes, so maybe that last part sounded slightly defensive. But it was as true as the first two.

“I’ve never had to have an after sex, ‘where do we go from here’ conversation with you before,” she replied.

Right. Which was the conversation they should have had before it had gotten to the sex part, but here they were. He leaned back in his seat and looked at the steering wheel in front of him. “Just for the record, I usually have that conversation
before
the sex.” This was as new for him as it was for Fitz. And because it was Fitz, he could actually admit out loud, “I have no freaking clue what we’re supposed to do now.”

Because he really wanted to do it again.

She was looking at him again—and he was
not
looking at her, because if he did he would have to eat her up. She quietly sighed when she turned away. “You promised this wouldn’t be awkward.”

Now he did turn to her. He hadn’t been lying. He didn’t have a clue where they went from here. But he was a certified expert at leaving the sex behind closed doors. Or at the fishing hole. “No, I promised that no matter what happens, we would still be friends. This is the trust and honesty part of the equation.
Awkward
would be if we couldn’t have a conversation right now. I’m happy to talk about anything you want.”

He’d actually love to have a conversation with her. Find out what else she was keeping inside, because he had no doubt there was more.

“Anything?” she asked, twisting so she was facing him.

“Hit me.” Unlike her, he was an open book.

But when, after staring at him intently for a few seconds she asked, “Why were you so angry with me?” he had to actually look away.

“I wasn’t angry with you,” he finally said, being not at all honest. So maybe he was a
partially
open book. “I just wish you’d told me about what happened to you.” He forced himself to say it without the rage he’d felt when he first heard the story from Nate. And because he couldn’t help it, he just couldn’t, he added, “You were almost—”

“Oh, my
God
,” she said, and not in the good, you’ve-just-given-me-the-best-orgasm-of-my-life way. Her head fell back against the headrest. “I was not
almost
anything. They were bullies. Pretty much the worst ones ever, in fact. I mean, they practically started crying at the first draw of blood, okay?”

“Jesus, Fitz,” Deke answered, making himself turn to her. That urge rose up within him again. He wanted to annihilate anyone who’d even thought about touching her in any conceivable way. “The fact that you had to ‘draw blood’ is exactly why it is not okay. It’s not even
close
to okay.”

“You barely even knew who I was back then,” she snapped. “I wasn’t about to run screaming for your help.”

Now he really was pissed. “I knew
exactly
who you were back then.” He’d known since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her on a brutally hot July afternoon, her eyes wide and her hair pulled back. He hadn’t known she was Nate’s sister then; no one had. All he knew was that her name was Angelica and she was the saddest girl he’d ever seen. The fact that he
hadn’t
been there for her then—that he’d been just another kid who’d allowed himself not to think about how badly she’d needed a friend—made him angry, too. As furious as he was ashamed. But it didn’t negate the fact that, “We’ve been friends for a long time. I just think maybe you could have mentioned it somewhere along the way.”

Proud he was managing to keep the rage he felt out of his own voice, he was taken completely by surprise by the rage in hers as she clutched the door handle and glared at him. “Because I was
humiliated
, okay? I was pathetic and needy and...”

Her voice trailed off and she turned her head away and he was so stunned by her outburst it took him a few seconds to realize there were tears running down her face. It floored him. He was out of his depth in so many ways. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Fitz full-out cry. Not since those very early days, at least. He knew she must have. Holy, fuck, she had to have given what she’d been through. But in all the time they’d been friends, she’d never broken down. Never been anything but a calm, kind presence, building up everyone else around her.

Pathetic?
Needy?
That wasn’t how they saw her. It never had been.

“Fitz...”

She shied away from him as he reached out.

With an ache so far down deep in his soul he couldn’t put a name to it, he pulled his hand back as she wrapped her arms around herself, saying, “I was such an idiot back then. I was just so desperate to believe. They...” She turned away from him again.

Given where his head was at the moment, it took him a minute to process that. To piece together what she’d said the other night at the fire pit, what Nate had told him, and that first night between her and Jules. “They
who
?” Lyle Butler?
Peggy?
“What did you want to believe?”

She shook her head as she looked out the window and briskly wiped at her tears—that were
killing
him, by the way—before tightening her arms, hugging herself with what seemed like an almost strangling grip. But then, although she kept herself as far away in the seat as she could get from him, she turned back to face him.

“Did you know you were the first person to make me smile after my parents died?” she said, thoroughly stunning him. Again.

Him?

He knew she had no family beyond her parents. That she’d lived a pretty isolated life on a farm before being put into foster care when her parents had died. The Jensens were decent and hardworking, but dour was kind of the name of the game. That they’d been foster parents had been as much of a surprise to Deke as the fact that they’d taken fifteen-year-old Angelica Wade in.

“You gave me back my backpack.” She made a noise that was kind of a combination of a sniff and a laugh. “I bet you don’t even remember that day.”

He did, though. Oh Christ, how he did. He hadn’t been nearly the protector he should have been for her, but he’d had some strange Fitz radar, even then. She could be on the other side of a crowded hallway, quietly keeping to herself, and he’d still been able to tell exactly where she was. He’d kept his distance out of deference to Nate, who was still actively avoiding her at that point, but since she’d been a friend of Lola’s and since he was always watching out for his own sister, of course, he’d figured even Nate would understand it meant keeping an eye out for Fitz, too.

One day she’d been at her locker and Harry Iverston had pushed up against her and knocked her backpack off her shoulder. Typical asshole move. And it had pissed Deke off beyond words, especially when he’d watched Fitz—still Angelica then, since it was months before the nickname thing—close her eyes and take a deep breath. By then she’d had enough practice she seemed able to hold back her tears through sheer force of will. So Deke had reclaimed the backpack. Even then he’d wanted to just bundle her up and spirit her away. Since they’d never even spoken to each other at the point, though, he’d instead placed the strap back on her shoulder and given her a wink and a smile before walking away.

Okay, he might have also shoved Harry against the lockers with the promise of a severe beat down if Harry even looked at Fitz the wrong way.

“You made me smile,” she added. “I was so...” Her voice broke and she turned to look out the window again. “I was just so alone.”

“Jesus,” he muttered, hating that she’d felt that way. That it had
been
that way. He looked down at the steering wheel. If he could take even a second of that back, he would. And no, he’d never treated her the way the other kids had, but he’d also never taken the extra step. Not the way Lola had, not until Nate had given the go-ahead all those months later.

If that day with the backpack meant that much to her, it wouldn’t have taken much to have been a better friend.

Fuck.

He leaned back against the seat. “You know what kills me? Just grabs me by the throat and takes me down?” He could hear the raggedness of his voice. Knew she could, too. Could even feel his voice break a little. “I thought you were happy. I mean, I figured it took some time to get there, but these last few years...? I thought you were good.”

Her breath caught and her eyes were glistening. He kind of hated himself right now. He’d gone through his whole life without a freaking care in the world and never had a clue she hadn’t felt the same way. Not about her parents, of course. That was some serious shit. But with Peggy? With Peggy’s friends? Fitz had obviously figured out a way to deal with it. They’d just pulled off a perfect weekend and it hadn’t been the first time. Still...

“There I was, going about my every day, all happy and go-lucky and shit, and there you were...” He had to stop for a minute. Couldn’t actually speak. Finally managed to force out, “It slays me.”

And now it was his turn to close his eyes and breathe. He couldn’t look her way.

Considering how angry he was at himself, he couldn’t imagine she would feel any differently. But instead of getting herself as far away as possible, she sighed. “Oh, Deke.” And she reached out for his hand.

He wasn’t an idiot. He took what was offered and laced his fingers through hers, looking down at how soft and delicate her skin was against the roughness of his. Focused on that for a minute before he looked up at her again. “What did Peggy do?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer. But he had to. Because there was something she still wasn’t saying, something else Nate hadn’t told him. Or maybe something even Nate didn’t know.

It wasn’t a good sign at all that Fitz tensed and started to pull away. But he gripped tighter and it was as if the move made her pull on a suit of armor. She straightened herself up and, after a pause, she said, “Just your usual mean girl stuff. Pretended to be my friend. Got me to tell her all my secrets.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Told me the boy I liked liked me, too, and that he was waiting for me. That’s the reason I went out to the shed.”

Deke’s head jerked up. He turned and stared.

Fuck secrets and why she kept them. All of his protective instincts locked into gear. “Do I know him? Was he in on it?” If the fucker was still around and he’d had any idea what was going on... “Did he know?”

And do I have to hurt him?
Deke decided not to add.

The strangest look came over Fitz’s face. Then to Deke’s complete surprise, she reached out and ran her hand down his arm, a gentle caress that came out of nowhere and nearly shot him into the stratosphere. He had to fight to stay focused on what she was saying rather than grip her wrist and pull her into his lap the way he was aching to do.

“I was never entirely sure,” she said. “I kind of just did that trust thing somewhere along the way.”

Yeah, talk about trust. That was a mighty fucking big leap of faith.

Then it hit him.

Oh, Christ, it was one of them. It had to be. Wash, maybe? Cal? He was pretty sure it wasn’t Jason, although considering the conversation from the other night, he did feel a little bad about even thinking that. But Fitz wouldn’t have cared if it were anyone else.

He closed his eyes. That she’d ever put her trust in them was—

“Deke, it was you.” she said softly.

He sat there for a minute.

“What?” he said when he was able to speak.

Then the implication of what she’d just said hit him.

He
was the reason she had gone out to the shed? That she’d had to actually fight off three guys no matter how fucking stupid and useless they were? That she’d been made to feel so
humiliated
she’d kept it inside for all of these yea—