The Bucket List (22 page)

"You've been in touch with her?" he asked, momentarily distracted.

"She's still my friend, Nate," Matt answered. "She called me the first time he hit her."

"Hit her? Why didn't you tell me this before?"

He couldn't stand those cowards who took their frustration out on defenseless women physically or verbally. Most guys would have gloated at that news, thought how she'd deserved that, but he wasn't most guys.

"I knew you'd feel like you needed to step in," Matt said. "But she needs you right now, so you should go."

"I'm not leaving Rae," he answered. "She needs me."

"You've known her two minutes. I'm sure it won't kill her if you just go and see Beth for a few minutes then come back," Matt urged.

Ignoring his brother, he concentrated a bit more on Rae's movements. The song had changed now to someone singing about his hands in the cookie jar, but she hadn't missed a beat. It was almost as if she couldn't even hear that.

He frowned again as that sick feeling in his stomach intensified.

He couldn't believe his eyes. What the fuck was she thinking?

"Now you see why I always feel like I have to look out for them?"

Alyssa was sitting with him across the room, his arm around her as she rested her head against his chest. He'd had no time for anyone else that evening as he'd concentrated on showing Mandy a good time. They'd danced a little and talked a lot, and the more he'd found out about her the more he'd fallen in love with her. And now this.

"What should we do?"
Mandy asked.

"Not much we can do to her right now, but we should find her shit and flush it down," he answered. "She's been weird all week and now she's getting high. She's avoided talking about it all weekend, but tomorrow I'm going to force her to talk."

"Come on, then," Mandy said as she got up. "Lets find that shit."

As he got up as well, Morrison and
Gary rushed in from the bar.

"John, get in there. You friend is going crazy on Dave's ass."

"What?!" John asked as he squeezed past the people in the room entranced by Rae's drug fuelled performance.

"Yeah. I'd have stopped them but I don't want to hurt this pretty face,"
Gary said in his typical fashion.

John hurried into the bar, and
Corey was indeed pounding the shit out off Dave. And everyone else was just watching.

"For fuck's sake!" he shouted, "Help me get him off."

As he tried to get Corey off, it was Nate who rushed in to help.

"
Corey, what the hell are you doing?" John shouted when he finally got his friend off.

His nose was bloody from the good punches Dave had thrown him and he used the back of his hand to wipe it off.

"That big shit had it coming," Corey growled.

"What did he do?"
Nate asked.

It was as if he'd only just noticed
Nate in the room.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm going to get ice or something for my eye. I want him gone by the time I come back."

With that, he left the room, leaving Nate and John to attend to the drunk man sprawled on the floor.

It was the largest most beautiful one she'd ever seen. So long, so thick
... she didn't think she could even fit it in her mouth.

"You like that, huh?" Morrison smirked as he stood over her.

"Dude... you're awesome," she said in complete awe.

"Want to try it?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Oh, yes. Give it to me, Daddy," she said eagerly as she moved closer to the man who held what she wanted the most at that point in time.

The kitchen door open but she didn't even hear it. Her eyes were still fixed on the Shaman of Sexy's generous offerings.

"Rae?! What are you doing?"

"Shh," she said, a frown marring her face at this unwanted interruption. "Lower your voice. You're in the presence of greatness."

"You heard the girl, Corey," Gary chuckled from his place next to her.

Corey
walked slowly to where they were, his head cocked and frowning in confusion until he finally saw what Rae was about to do.

"That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen," he said as he placed a hand over his mouth. "Who made that?"

In front of him was the most sickening sandwich, if you could call it that. It was filled with all the makings known to men and those he was sure had never been tried between slices of bread before. He made up peanut butter and jam, pickles, plenty of vegetables, mustard, the leftover dinner that his mom had wrapped up for to bring home, cheese, mayonnaise and plenty of other things he couldn't place all stacked in between slice after slice of bread until it made a tower on a plate in front of Morrison.

"I did," John said proudly.

"Why?" he asked, his face still scrunched up.

"We came in here and she was struggling with the knife. I offered her my services, put everything she asked for on it," Morrison explained with a chuckle.

But Rae wasn't paying them any attention. She was still focused on the beautiful sandwich that John had just made her. It had all the colours on it... reds... yellows... greens... browns... even blues, all swimming around and merging beautifully. How the hell was she going to get that baby down? Maybe if she started with a little bite at the top...

"Don't you dare put your mouth on that thing,"
Corey shouted as he pulled her away from it and turned her head to face him.

"Have you painted your face?" she asked, a little smile forming on her lips as her finger touched the blood running down from his nose. "It looks so pretty."

He frowned as realisation hit him and he looked her in the eyes.

"Fuck, Rae! Why?" he shouted as he shook her a bit. "Why would you do something as stupid as this?"

"Chill out, Corey. Have a bite of my sandwich or something," she said as she turned from him to sit back next to Gary at the table.

"Did you give it to her?" he angrily asked the other men.

"No," they said in unison.

"She was like this when we came in here," Morrison explained.

"Hmm?" she asked, turning to Gary as if he'd just spoken to her. "You wanna come in my what where now?"

Gary
chuckled again.

"I like her," he said.

"This isn't funny," Corey snapped before turning his friend in her chair to face him. "Why? What's stressed you that much you felt you needed to do this shit?"

The last time he'd seen her like this was after they had buried her mother. It had been a hard time for all of them, but he had
rode her ass about that shit even then.

"Relax," she said as she brushed his hand away. "It's an awesome party, go out there and enjoy yourself."

"I'm telling your dad," he muttered as he turned away from her. He was too angry to deal with her himself.

"Ooooh,"
Gary teased. "Your best friend got high and now you're going to call her dad to tattle? She won't like that."

"What is he going to do, anyway? Crash her party and tell her off?" Morrison asked.

"He doesn't need to crash. He's here already."

"Where?"

"Sitting with my mum and dad."

"If he was, he ain't there now. I saw
Irving sitting with them," Gary said.

"Yeah. That's her dad,"
Corey said as he left the room.

The two men left looked at each other and then at Rae as
Corey's revelation sank in.

"Get rid of that disgusting sandwich,"
Gary said as he jumped out of his chair so they could be as far away from Rae as possible when the Crusher’s made his appearance.

Nate
made to pass Corey on his way to the kitchen to find Rae, but the other man's hand stopped him.

"This is all your fault," the angry man growled. "I don't give a shit what you do in your time, but when you do that shit with her, you mess with me."

"I don't do that stuff," he snapped as he pulled his arm away.

"She wasn't like this before you came in the picture."

"Are you sure?"

The little look that passed the other man's face told him he wasn't so sure.

"Party's over," Corey growled instead of answering. "Get your shit and leave our house."

"I will only leave when Rae asks me to," he said as he walked past him.

It was only when he got into the kitchen he realised he would indeed have to go. If Corey had thought he had put her up to this, there was no telling what everyone else would say.

She was sitting with a big bag of Doritos in front of her, laughing to herself.

"Rae?"

"
Nate," she said, smiling as she motioned him over. "It's a great party, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he lied. "But I'm going to have to go soon."

He watched as the smile disappeared from her face and she turned back to her chips.

"Back to your hotel?"

"Yeah. But I'll be back in the morning, I promise."

"It's
all right, Nate. I'll see you in the morning then," she said with a smile he could totally see through.

"I'll leave your presents on your bed so you can open them when you go to sleep."

She smiled again and nodded. He really wished he could stay with her right now but something was going on inside her that he couldn't help. Doing what she had done had obviously been a cry for help, but maybe if he left her in Corey's hands while she was like this, she would open up to him. If he stayed, he'd only feel the need to protect her, to keep her away from the people who loved her the most when they tried to force her to let them in. That wouldn't help her situation at all.

"I will be back, Rae," he assured her as he lifted her face up gently by her chin to face him.

"I know," she smiled.

As he dropped a kiss on her lips, he couldn't help feeling that something had gone very, very wrong. Would she still be his girlfriend by the time the sun rose tomorrow?

"Nate, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. My daughter and I need to talk."

He released her at the
Crusher’s command and gave her a little smile before turning from her. Irving looked extremely pissed, he hoped that he would look beyond this night to realise that something was really wrong with his daughter.

With a nod in the man's direction, he let himself out of the kitchen.

"We can clean all of this up tomorrow," John said as he came back into the lounge from showing the last few people out and sat down next to Alyssa.

"What a party, hey?"
Alyssa sighed. "What time is it, anyway."

"Um... ten forty-five," John replied, then looked over at his friend, sprawled on the chair with a bag of frozen peas on his face.

Ten forty-five. Obviously, Corey and Rae's little special moment wasn't happening this year. Well, there was always next year. What was happening right now was more important than a little dance. And opening a few presents. She could always do that tomorrow.

"They've been in there a long time. What do you think he's saying to her?"
Alyssa asked.

"I hope he's tanning her little butt so I won't have to do it tomorrow,"
Corey spat out. "Whatever she's going through, she could have come to me. But no, the little bitch decided to get high."

"Maybe because you weren't in such a communicative mood, earlier,"
Alyssa said.

"Don't put this on me," he snapped. "Rae knows I'd never shut her out. Whatever I'm going through, however I'm feeling, I always have time for her."

At that moment they heard the kitchen door open and heavy footsteps coming down the hallway. Then through the open door, they saw Irving with his little girl asleep in his arms as he carried her up the stairs.

Then a few minutes later, he came back down and stood by the doorway.

"She's hiding something from me," he stated. "I'll be back tomorrow to talk to her. I didn't get anything out of her but something is really wrong. If I hadn't seen the sad look in her eyes I would have whipped her behind for touching that stuff."

"She's been like this all week, keeping secrets and stuff," John said.

"And when she came to spend some time with the family, I could feel something was wrong," Irving added. "Tomorrow, just after breakfast. I'll get to the bottom of it then. Goodnight, boys. And you, Alyssa."

"I guess we'll know tomorrow, then," John said when
Irving was gone.

Alyssa
let out a little yawn.

"Let me show you your bed," John said as he got up and pulled
Mandy up with him. "We can watch a movie or something before you fall asleep."

"Try to get some sleep,
Corey," she said softly as she dropped a kiss on her friend's cheek.