Scar

SCAR 

NAKED Book 7

by
Kelly Favor

©
Kelly Favor. 2014

All rights reserved.

Trey’s eyes were dangerous as he came toward her in the basement, and Caelyn was terrified as she backed away from him.

Would Elijah hear her if she screamed? Could Elijah even get down there in time to stop Trey from whatever it was he was about to do?

“You trying to Donnie Brasco me?” Trey asked, coming to within a few feet of where Caelyn stood, his nostrils flaring, cheeks red.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about, Trey.” Memories of Jayson flashed through her mind, turning her hands and feet numb, as her heart raced faster.

“Well you better tell me what the fuck you’re doing down in my basement peeping my shit,” Trey told her. “Because you got me thinking the worst right now.”

“I came down to make myself a cup of coffee. That’s all. I was hung over from last night.”

Trey stroked his beard and glared at her. His eyes were wide, darting from side to side and then stopping to stare incredulously at Caelyn. “Bullshit.”

“I swear,” she said, putting her hand up as if to swear on the bible.

“I checked my scanner and I checked the news,” Trey said. “There was nothing about Elijah, nothing whatsoever. How do I know you two didn’t make that shit up about him being America’s most wanted criminal?”

“Why would we do that?” Caelyn said, trying to keep her voice light. Trey was paranoid, she realized, and she needed to keep him calm just long enough to tell Elijah and get out of there. “And we never told you he was America’s most wanted criminal or anything like that. We just told you the police were looking for him.”

Trey’s eyes widened maniacally. “Or maybe you’re both really
working
with the cops. Maybe they
sent
you.”

“Over a little pot?” she said, gesturing to the piles of green marijuana buds on his desk.

“That’s not just
a little pot
,” Trey said, his voice defensive.

“It’s legal everywhere,” Caelyn laughed. “What you have down here would probably get you a ticket and a fifty dollar fine nowadays.”

“It aint legal here, honey.”

“It’s not?” she asked.

“No. Not by a long shot.”

“Well, I have friends in California who can pick up that much weed at their local corner store and nobody even cares.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to say that I’m small time or something?”

Caelyn knew she was taking a risk by acting like she thought it was no big deal, but she knew that Trey was starting to doubt the paranoid story he’d concocted about her and Elijah.

“I’m not saying you’re small time,” she said, shrugging. “I’m just saying, I highly doubt the cops would put together a whole secret sting operation just to catch someone selling a little bit of marijuana.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, stroking his beard and glancing at the floor. “I know that they’re onto me. I know the DEA’s been trying to find a way to nail me ever since I got big enough to make inroads with some of the bigger distributors.”

“Maybe,” Caelyn said. “But Breaking Bad was about meth for a reason, right? I mean
,
the cops want to make meth busts and stuff like that. I’m sure they’re focused on the really bad drugs like heroin, meth, crack.”

She just hoped to God that Trey wasn’t also selling some of those drugs, too.

But Trey seemed strangely defeated, as if he’d actually wanted to believe that Caelyn was some undercover agent plotting to arrest him for selling marijuana.

He turned and walked over to his desk. “You shouldn’t go snooping around people’s houses like that,” he whined. Still, a great deal of the anger had gone out of his voice.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Caelyn said. “I really was just thinking about getting coffee.”

“Sure. Sure, I understand,”
Trey
said softly. He was staring at his drugs as if lost in another world.

She sighed and started towards the stairs, just wanting nothing more than to wake Elijah and make their escape right away.

This situation was exactly what she’d been afraid of.

“Caelyn, wait,” Trey’s voice followed her.

She turned, anxiety blooming in her stomach. “Yeah?”

“You’re not going to mention any of this to Elijah, are you?”

Caelyn looked at him, measuring her words carefully. “I don’t see why you’re so worried about it,” she told him. “Elijah won’t even care.”

“Yes he will. I know Elijah, he’s not as chill as you about this whole drug business.”

Caelyn almost laughed. She’d somehow managed to convince Trey that she was “chill” about his drug business, when nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Fine,” she said, making eye contact with Trey. “I won’t tell him anything for now.”

Trey’s shoulders relaxed. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry if I came off a little intense there. I know I can be…high-strung…or whatever.”

“No problem,” Caelyn replied, smiling, and then she turned and walked up the stairs, her heart still pounding.

***

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

Elijah blinked at her from where he lay on the bed, his eyes still cloudy from sleep. “Huh?”

Caelyn sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to keep her voice even.
“I said, we have to go.
Like, now.”

“What’s wrong?” Elijah sat up, his eyes clearing, his brow furrowing. “What did Trey do?”

“Keep your voice down,” Caelyn whispered, looking over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door. “I told Trey that I wasn’t going to say anything to you.”

“Say anything about what?” Elijah asked, sliding out from beneath the covers.

Even now, in this extreme circumstance,
Caelyn’s breath was taken away by Elijah’s incredible body
. He was wearing just his boxer shorts, and seeing the flex of his muscular legs, the beauty of his chiseled abs and biceps, the flawlessness of his skin, still made Caelyn wonder how on earth Elijah had ended up somehow being her boyfriend.

She wasn’t supposed to be with a guy like Elijah—hot, sexy, smoldering, dangerous. And yet it had happened. Everything had
happened,
it was all too real—including the danger they were in.

“Caelyn,” Elijah said, waving a hand in front of her eyes. “Are you still with me or what?”

“Sorry, I just—“ her cheeks reddened as she shook her head. “Can we just leave and I’ll tell you everything when we get out of here?”

Elijah was pulling on his jeans, sliding them over his hips, his stomach tightening into a beautiful grid of interlocking muscles as he buttoned his pants. “I don’t get it,” he sighed. “I thought everything was cool.”

“It was cool,” she said.

“If Trey did something to you, you need to tell me so I can handle it.”

“He didn’t do anything to me,” she replied, standing up and walking closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Elijah brushed her hair back from her face. “He did something, though. Something freaked you out.”

“If I tell you what happened, you have to promise not to say anything to Trey,” Caelyn told him, looking into his eyes.

Elijah grinned his little lopsided grin that always reassured her. “You know I can’t do that, kid. If I need to smack him upside the head, then that’s what’s going to happen.”

“No, I don’t want you smacking anyone. Please, Elijah. Can’t we just leave?”

He leaned in and kissed her lips gently. “Tell me what happened. I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”

Caelyn sighed. Part of her really didn’t want to tell Elijah what had happened, but then again, the warmth of his body against hers seemed to remove her ability to resist his charm. “Okay,” she said, softly. “I got up and went downstairs to get some coffee—“

Suddenly, there was a knock on the bedroom door, cutting her off in mid-sentence.

Caelyn looked at the door, as the knock happened again, even louder.

Elijah glanced at the door and then at Caelyn. He saw the fear in her eyes. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said.

Then he went and opened the door.

Paris was standing at the door with her arms crossed, eyes narrow as she glared at Caelyn. “Trey told me to go and check and make sure you weren’t snitching, but we figured you’d snitch anyway,” she said to Caelyn.

“I didn’t snitch,” Caelyn told her.

Elijah stood between them. “Don’t start shit with Caelyn,” he warned Paris. “I’m dead serious. She didn’t tell me anything, but I better get some answers right now. What the hell’s going on?”

“Ask the snitch.”

“I told you to stop saying that,” Elijah growled.

Caelyn licked her lips. She wanted to get out of the house worse than ever. “Elijah, we need to go. I don’t want to fight with anyone. I don’t even care anymore.”

“You want to go run and tell the cops about Trey’s business?” Paris yelled, trying to get past Elijah, who held her back easily.

“Hey, back off,” Elijah said, holding Paris by her thin arms. She squirmed free, shouting at the top of her lungs.

“Let me go!” Paris screeched, scratching Elijah’s face as she flailed at him.

Elijah pulled away, hissing through his teeth in pain. Caelyn could already see the red lines from her fingernails across his cheek.

Great
.
She’s loonier than Trey is
.

Elijah looked at Caelyn and shook his head with disbelief. “She scratched me.”

“Never lay your hands on me again,” Paris told him, her eyes wide and her hair spilling crazily onto her forehead, messy from the scuffle.

“What’s going on in here?” Trey called out, as he entered the scene from the hallway behind her.

“Your stupid friend just put his hands on me and I had to take care of it,” Paris said. “He might be hot, but he’s also a real jerk.”

“I didn’t do anything but try and keep her from fighting with Caelyn,” Elijah said.

Trey glanced at Paris wearily, then to Caelyn and Elijah. “You told him, didn’t you?” he asked Caelyn, not even seeming angry, but more resigned.

“She was about to tell him, I heard her,” Paris shouted.

“Caelyn never said anything,” Elijah replied. “But I want to know what’s going on, dude. This is crazy.”

Trey glanced at Paris. “Get out of here,” he told her.

“What?” she asked, looking as if he’d slapped her.

“I said, get out of here. Go take a shower or something. Brush your teeth. You still smell like last night’s beer.”

“Fuck you.” She turned and stalked away, yelling insults but inaudible ones.

Trey turned back to Elijah. “I’m sorry about her,” he said, grimacing. He leaned against the doorframe and stroked his beard. “Your cheek all right?”

Elijah nodded. “Yeah, it’s just a scratch. She’s pretty strong for her size.”

“Crazy adds at least one hundred percent to your strength, I think,” Trey said. “It’s like a superpower.”

Elijah grinned but then his expression turned serious. “So…what the fuck’s going on?”

Trey glanced at Caelyn. “She came downstairs this morning and saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

“I just needed coffee, I wasn’t snooping,” Caelyn said.

Trey held up his hands. “No offense. She wasn’t trying to find anything, but she did happen to stumble across my business.”

“Your business.” Elijah’s expression darkened. “You selling again?”

Trey paused, as if to consider the ramifications of what he was about to say. “Truth is, I never really stopped selling. Not completely.”

“Great,” Elijah said. He looked at Caelyn. “Get your things, Caelyn. We’re leaving. Now.”

“Hold on,” Trey said. “I know you’re mad but—“

“No buts,” Elijah said. “You lied to me. I stuck my neck out for you back in the day. And you promised me you’d get out of the game, that was the deal.”

“I know what I promised you,” Trey said, “but I couldn’t stay out. I needed to make money.”

“You should’ve found something else. Or you should never have made me that promise. Do you know what I had to go through to bail you out?”

Trey walked further into the room, his eyes pleading. “I didn’t want to keep selling, I tried to quit like I promised. But then—“

“Then you decided it was easier to sell then it was to keep your promise to me.”

Trey’s voice grew gravelly, choking a little bit. “No, then I decided that I was a fucking loser, and nobody wanted to hire me. I couldn’t even last working at a Burger King. They fired me after two weeks, and not because I was late or rude or anything.”

“Why would they fire you unless you did something wrong?”

“Because,” Trey said.
“I sucked at it. I couldn’t even handle doing the drive thru. They tried to train me and I wanted to learn, but I couldn’t remember it all. And I was so slow. Maybe it was all those years of smoking weed, I don’t know. I just know that they let me go, and I realized that I couldn’t hack it in the regular world.”

Elijah sighed. “How can I believe you? Maybe this is just a new story to make me feel bad again at how hard it is to be Trey.”