Pure Will (6 page)

She giggled and that was music to my ears.

“Come Wrigley,” I shouted.

After my shower, I found her looking at the pictures of me in the cross-fit games. My mother had framed them and I was a little embarrassed that I had pics of myself in the house.

“You have a very ugly body,” she said.

“Why thank you. I work hard to have an ugly body.”

“You smell soapy and clean,” she said leaning into me. I wanted to pull her closer.

I inhaled her soft scent. “You smell sweaty and rank.”

Immediately she sniffed her pits and I busted up laughing. 

“Should I shower?” she asked.

“No, I was teasing. Drink here or go somewhere?” I asked. “Wait, are you 21?”

Her brows arched up. “Do you think I am?”

I shrugged. “Actually, I don’t care. My objective is to get you drunk then take advantage of you.”

“It happens a lot. Most of the time, I can’t even remember who or how it happened.”

A low growl rumbled through my chest.

“What was that?” she asked her eyes widening.

“A nonverbal warning to all the other men out there.”

“Warning?”

I walked toward her with the prowess of a jungle cat… “Any guy who thinks he might have a chance with you.”

Her little body squirmed. Though her breasts were small, they curved beautifully on her chest.

“I’m 21,” she said somewhat maneuvering away from that subject.

I grinned. “I would have rounded up anyway. What’s your poison?”

Her little shoulders jetted up then down. “Do you have vodka?”

“I do,” I said, surprised by her choice.

In the living room, she sat in the corner of the sofa, so I tried keeping some distance and sat a couple of feet away from her. Wrigley had taken up shop at her feet.

“You ready for question time?” I asked as she sipped her drink.

She nodded. “I suppose. You’ve already asked four.”

My eyes widened. She had been keeping track as well. “I HAVE NOT!” I shouted.

She nodded again insisting I have.

“Asking if you’re 21 isn’t a question.”

“Yes, it is,” she giggled. “So is ‘what’s your poison.’”

I felt myself inching closer to her. If only I could simply hold her.

“Forget the ten questions. You go first,” I finally said.

“Do you like Kate at all?” she asked with no hesitation, so obviously this had been on her mind.

“No. I mean I guess as a friend. You two are cute together.”

“Cute?”

I nodded. “Yes. Your interactions.”

She smiled. “The last time you were with her, did you think of me?”

“By with her, you mean sex?” I asked.

She nodded.

My eyes held hers. “Yes.”

The corners of her mouth turned upward.

“That makes you happy?” I asked and my heart pounded in my throat as I waited for her response.

“Maybe. I saw it in your eyes,” she said and I closed the distance between us on the sofa. I lifted her hair with the back of my hand and took a big swallow of beer and relished her honesty.

“Is Landon really dangerous?”

I fought a smile. “I don’t know. I asked someone in the strength center his name before I followed you out. All I knew is you weren’t leaving with him.”

She seemed to lose her oxygen for a minute and I don’t know what that meant.

“You go,” she whispered.

I knew my first one. “When was the last time you kissed a guy?”

“Last week.”

The reverberating growl reared its ugly head again. “Explain that.”

She bit down on her lip then grinned wide. “Strip poker Blake. He sort of kissed me in the kitchen that night.”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, tell me because that was NOT a kiss.”

“What do you mean by kiss?”

“Tell me.”

She shook her head. “It’s been a while,” she said so softly I barely heard.

“Was it with your brother?”

Her eyes closed and she was taking deep breaths. “I don’t even know your last name.” The vodka and water she drank slid down too easily for my liking.

“It’s Denton. Will-i-am Denton.”

She smiled but it faded quickly. “Anyone who has ever known this has turned on me. No one in Kansas knows but Kate.”

I couldn’t turn my back on this girl ever and that scared the shit out of me. She’d been hurt and I wanted to make a vow to her that she’d never hurt like that again. But Jesus, my thoughts frightened me.  I put my fears of loss onto her.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise you won’t go.”

“I’m right here.”

After a long sip, which finished her drink in record time, she said, “Max wasn’t my brother. He was my stepbrother.”

I knew before she said any more that I hated Max and I would destroy him if I ever saw him.

“I was 15 when my dad remarried. I’d never met Max because he lived with his father. He’d gotten arrested for possession of marijuana and his dad kicked him out and sent him to live with us to get away from the crowd he was in there. He was 18 when he came and on probation.”

She sloshed around the ice in her drink and I took the glass from her and went and made another drink.

“OK…” I said when I got back.

“Max was beautiful and all the girls were crazy about him. There he was under my roof. I had this horrendous crush on him and he was pissed off all the time. At his parents. At life. When he turned 19, he went out and got some tattoos and one of them was a ‘C’ and I dreamed it was my initial,” she said still sounding disappointed. “And he was everything I wasn’t at 16. He was strong and courageous or so I thought. I wanted him so badly.”

She stopped and stared at her twiddling fingers. Every instinct inside of me wanted to pull her into my chest and hold her. That instinct had never been a part of my disposition and the desire was overwhelmingly strong.

The part of my disposition that
had
always been alive and present—was wanting to obliterate Max.

“Max drank vodka so that Tracy and my dad couldn’t smell it, and after getting a DUI, he was grounded and home for a month even though he was 19. He came in to my room one night while I was studying.”

I finished my beer and wanted to throw the bottle into the closest wall. Predator!

“So, we drank together and got to know each other. I wanted to look cool to him. Probably why vodka is my poison. We would stay up and talk for hours. He wanted to know about my sex life and who I had kissed and there was ZERO to tell.  But I lied and told him I had kissed a couple of guys. I’m not sure he believed me. Then one night he kissed me and I think he knew then because he would tell me to open my mouth or to do something differently. And Kate and I talked about it and neither of us thought it was wrong. We weren’t related. Believe it or not, she hadn’t had sex yet and so I shared all the gory details.”

She shook her head trying to ward off thoughts.  I needed to know those thoughts.  Finally, I reached for her hand; it was half the size of mine.

“Someone must have thought it was wrong,” I said but meant it as a question.

“We took turns going to each other’s room. But he mainly made me come to his. The house was huge. Things…sexually…went further each night. And some people thought he forced me. But he didn’t. I wanted it too. When he touched me, I had never felt like that before, and he made me feel like we were ok. He taught me things. Things to do. Things not to do. Then one night when I was in his room, Tracy walked in. Suddenly it was my entire fault. I was a disturbed little girl according to her. How could you possibly have sex with your stepbrother? Everything that I thought was ok and felt right was demonized. And as quick as that, he was sent back to live with his father. Tracy divorced my dad because my dad took my side.”

I made a mental note to thank her father…buy that guy a beer.

“But after she left, he started treating me differently. I think he was angry at me for allowing it to happen…maybe not blaming me but… He was lonely after she left and I think he really loved her. So then I started blaming myself for the ripple effect that my actions caused. ”

Fuck the beer. He wasn’t getting jack shit from me.

“Kate was there through it all. The medication she referred to the other day—an antianxiety/antidepressant.” She rolled her eyes and nibbled on her thumbnail. “I was a basket of nerves after. Being judged by people that knew. I was the girl who had sex with her
brother
,” she said and her little chin quivered and gigantic teardrops rolled down her cheeks, but it was as if she wasn’t crying. She seemed detached. “I’ve gotten off of it before but sometimes I get back on it if I’m struggling. I haven’t taken it since that morning you came by.”

No longer able to resist, I slowly pulled her into my chest. Elation flooded through me when she didn’t resist.

“Do you think he was in the wrong?” I asked softly.

She shrugged. “My therapist for a year asked me that over and over. I don’t think I thought so at the time, but he was…” She lowered her head and shook her head.

“He was what?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to say this and I don’t want to talk about it any further, kay?”

I nodded and prayed I could hold up to this.

“He was…rough,” she whispered. “And I didn’t really know another way. He was my first and, well, I just didn’t know.”

Old Faithful spewing forcefully out of the ground was what I thought my head was going to do. That was the last thing I expected her to say. So, he had hurt her. Muther Fucker! Control. Composure. Hurt him…not her.  My foot started wagging while resting on my other ankle to release the building tension. 

“And even now, you don’t see that he was in the wrong?” I asked.

She shrugged and teetered her head back and forth like she was considering it.

“He was 19 Camden. You were 15,” I said quietly not wanting to rock the boat.

She sat upright, away from me, and I hated that distance.

“I know, Will. I had turned 16.”

“Do you ever talk to him now?”

“Before his mother changed his cell number, I texted him and asked what happens now? He texted back and said,” her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands. “I’d like for you to wait and not be with others so maybe someday we could try again. So...”

“You waited…” I said and contemplated in my head if I would actually kill Max or just cripple him.

She nodded. “When I came to KU, that was my fresh start. No one knew. Kate was going to help find me a man. But every guy I dated, I froze when he touched me. I became this frigid cold bitch. I couldn’t trust. How do you believe what someone is saying? Then Max showed up.”

“Here?”

“Yes. Usually makes a semi-annual appearance.”

I shot upright while a roar festered deep inside me. I was ready to piss on her to stake my claim. Trying to maintain even an ounce of composure, I got myself another beer.

“What does he want?”

“He wants to know if I’ve been with anyone. Last time he kissed me, but when he tried more I stopped him. I wasn’t that same little girl anymore. He got angry and started yelling at me. Asked what my point was in not having sex for the past four years if he couldn’t have me.”

Kate heard him yelling at me from the stairs and when she walked in the apartment she pulled up 911 on her phone. Told him he had exactly thirty seconds to get out or she was calling the cops. Told him to never come back.”

“Did he leave?”

She nodded.  “Turned and said remember our agreement then he walked out.” After blowing out a long breath. “Pretty effed up, huh?”

I found it cute she didn’t just say fuck because I sure as fuck wanted to.

“Naw” I smiled. “He is, for doing that to you. Do you…still want him? Still love him?”

PLEASE SAY NO…

“No. I see what he’s done now. And I’ve watched movies and read books and when he and I were together…I mean like sex…it was nothing like it was in those movies or books.  I know that some of the things he did…the rough stuff. Well, he hurt me. And he got in my head.”

“He’s still in your head,” I said taking a risk.

She reached up and touched my face and that was my undoing. I think I melted beneath her touch.

“Help me get him out,” she begged.

And suddenly this was my sole purpose in life.

Chapter—Will

We finished our drinks and sat in silence for a while listening to the music. To me, it wasn’t an awkward silence…just silence. And I wondered why she chose me to trust, but I was ecstatic.

“How much do I owe you?” She asked.

I finished that beer and shrugged. “Well now it depends if you’re talking about the cab back from here when I refuse to let you leave or the cost of your clothes when I rip them off?”

She giggled and I could listen to THAT sound all day…and night.

“You want to rip off my clothes right now?”

“Pretty much every second since you threw powdered sugar in my face. But yes, right now in particular.” I narrowed my eyes.

“Now that you know the extent of my extensive sex life. Tell me about yours.”

I chuckled only to cover my nerves.  There was no way in hell I would out myself for the man whore that I was. “Cam you don’t want to hear about that. There have been others. Let’s just leave it at that. OK?” God, if she thought she was dirty after letting Max have his way with her, she’d never understand the countless, nameless, faceless girls I’d been with. I went out on a limb taking her hand again and kissed her knuckles.

“Well. You are sexy as hell and have an awesome body so I’m sure there have been ‘others.’ But I kinda dig you because you’re kind and on occasion you’re funny.”

“On occasion??” I shouted.  “ I am damn funny, all the time! In fact, let’s go back to the sexy as hell comment. You think I’m sexy?”

She rolled her eyes and started to get up. I yanked her arm back and she fell closer to me.

“Did you ride the short bus or do you just need a self-esteem boost?” she asked.

“Remember Cam…you’re trying to be nice. Give some effort.”

“Shut-up! You know you are sexy.”