The Price of Love (A Price Novel Book 1) (16 page)

She wrapped her arms around me and held me tight. “I love you with all my heart. You’re my sister, and I promise I will never betray you. But you’re wrong. I know your mom and sisters are selfish as all hell, but they do care about you. Both your mom and Kenedy left you voice mails just today to call them. See, they miss you — and your mom called twice last week, but I forgot to tell you. Sorry.”

“What? That’s weird. Maybe I should call them back. Did they say anything?” I asked.

“No, they just asked for you to please call them.”

For a moment, I considered not calling them back. I couldn’t think of anything that they could say to me that would make me feel better, but I guessed I had better see what was so important.

I tried Mom first and just got her voice mail. Big surprise there. I couldn’t bring myself to leave her a message. If it were that important, she would have kept her phone with her. I only got Kenedy’s voice mail too, and I decided against leaving her a message as well.

A knock sounded at the door.
Eric
.

Milly cracked the door and looked out into the hall. I heard her say, “Give me just a minute.” She shut the door and looked at me very seriously. “Mr. Right Now is right outside this door, and I really think you would like him if you would let your guard down for, like, one second. He is cute and smart, and he thinks you’re the
bomb
!” She was trying to make me smile, but it didn’t work.

I went to the bathroom to get myself under control. I wasn’t prepared for any more questions. Eric spoke through the bathroom door. “Hey, beautiful! Josh and Karen can’t come, and Milly just said she had to step out. So, can I get a rain check? We have a week before the test anyway.”

Is he serious? He’s always trying to get me alone, and now that he has the chance, he bails? He has to be kidding me.
I could feel my cheeks flush with anger. The truth was, I just didn’t want to be alone at the moment. I yanked the door open with so much force the doorknob came off in my hand.

Eric was sitting in my computer chair, and he twirled around to see what I was doing. “Whoa, what’s up with you? You’ve been crying. Your eyes are all puffy.” Walking over to me, he rubbed my cheek with his thumb. I didn’t jerk away like I normally would have. Instead, I leaned my head onto his chest and let him wrap his muscular arms around me. I had to admit, it did make me feel a tiny bit better, but just a little.

“OK, now I’m worried. Are you sick?” He pretended to check my temperature, but he didn’t let me go. He squeezed me to him even tighter.

I pulled away. “Maybe, I don’t know. I sure haven’t felt like myself lately.” I plopped down on my bed. He took the doorknob from my hand and sat down beside me.

“Well, I have a surprise for you.” Reaching into his pockets, he pulled something out. “Kid Rock tickets — you wanna go?”

Before I could think about what he was proposing, I said, “I would love to go.”

“Good — get dressed.”

“Now?” I asked.

“Yes, now. It’s not like you have anything better to do,” he said with a big smile. He squeezed my leg and pulled on my belt loop to get me moving.

Now that I thought about it, he was pretty cute, and he did have a point. I went into the bathroom to change.

As we headed out the door, he announced, “I have Jell-O shots in the car. We’re going to meet my little brother and his girlfriend there, if that’s OK,” he said.

“Sounds great.” I forced a smile.

Eric talked the whole way to the Staples Center, but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about Slayde, and wondering what he was doing. His contract would be over any time now, and he had been going to come home. The thought of that made me sick. These last few weeks had been a living hell, but with him on the other side of the world, I was at least able to try to go on with life as usual. I hadn’t had to worry about running into him. Then I thought about seeing Kinley and him together with their baby, and I thought I was going to throw up on Eric’s floorboard. That was it. I couldn’t take any more; I opened the Jell-O shots.

As Eric parked the car, I decided to leave my thoughts of Slayde in the car. I was determined to have a good time.

Eric’s brother’s name was Ethan, and he looked like a younger version of Eric. He wasn’t quite as tall, but he had the same pretty blue eyes and blond hair. Ethan’s girlfriend’s name was Amber, and she seemed OK. I think she had started her party a few hours before we had, and she was super excited about Eric’s Jell-O shots.

We stood in the parking lot a while, trying to consume as many of Eric’s Jell-O shots as we could before going into the concert, where they’d make us throw them away. We grabbed a few shots for the road and started our walk toward the Staples Center.

Thanks to the quick consumption of numerous Jell-O shots, I had a good buzz going early on in the concert, and I needed to go to the little girl’s room. Apparently Eric thought I wasn’t able to go by myself, because he started to follow me. I didn’t have the energy to argue with him, so I let him walk with me. When I came out of the bathroom, he was leaning against the wall, waiting for me.

“How about we go get some water? It’s burning up in there,” he said, and I nodded. We were headed back into the concert when he grabbed my hand and stopped walking. I turned to see what he was doing, and he kissed me. Without thinking, I kissed him back. Maybe I hoped it would make me feel better, but it didn’t. I felt nothing. It was like kissing my cousin or something — total disappointment. Was this what life post-Slayde was going to be like? I felt dead inside.

Still holding my hand, Eric led me back, and I had a few more drinks. I spent the rest of the concert trying to force myself to have a good time. We had pit tickets, so everyone around us was completely insane, and I grew tired of getting stepped on by crazy fans and tired of getting beer sprayed all over me by the band. I suggested we go back to the car and finish off those Jell-O shots.

That’s when things got a little fuzzy. When we arrived back at the dorm, I felt like death. It was late, and I was exhausted and drunk. All I wanted to do was get in my bed and pass out.

Eric helped me up the stairs and to my room. The door was unlocked and the lights were on. I thought I must have been really drunk, because it looked like Slayde Price was sitting on my bed. I blinked several times, and Eric let me go as Slayde approached us.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor and Slayde was kneeling beside me, wiping my face with a cool rag. I could hear Slayde saying my name over and over, but I couldn’t for the life of me respond. Eric and Milly were also kneeling beside me, and Milly squealed when she saw me coming to. Slayde got closer to my face, and Eric pushed him away. I could tell I had missed something, but I didn’t know what.

“Boys, boys, stop it! Eric, now that we know she’s going to be OK, you can go home,” Milly said.

“I’m doing no such thing. I am not leaving her. I’m staying and helping you take care of her.”

“I think you’ve done more than enough,” Slayde snapped. Just the sound of his voice gave me delicious chills, even though I could tell he was angry.

“Who in the hell are you, and what are you doing here?” Eric asked.

“I’m her boyfriend. Who are you?” Slayde shouted. They were both standing at this point, and only about a foot apart.

“I’m her date, and she doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Eric said.

They both turned to Milly for some clarification. She grabbed Eric’s arm and led him to the door. “Good night, Eric. We will see you in the morning.” She shut and locked the door before he could argue.

Suddenly, the room started spinning, and I knew I was going to puke. Slayde must have figured that out, because he grabbed my trash can just in time. I felt so humiliated. He helped me to the bathroom and pulled my hair back. Once I felt like I could get up, he got me my toothbrush, washed my face, and helped me get on something to sleep in. After he helped me into bed, he went into the bathroom, and Milly rushed over to me.

“What in the hell did you do in Paris?” she asked with a huge smile on her face. “He’s what’s really wrong with you, isn’t he? That’s why you cry yourself to sleep every night. Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t answer her aloud; I just nodded. I knew he could hear us. The walls were paper thin, and the door didn’t close anymore, since I had ripped off the doorknob. “OK, sweetie, you sleep. Is it OK to leave you? I will go crash at Karen’s.” I told her that was fine, and she kissed my cheek and left.

Slayde waited for her to leave and then came back into the room and lay beside me on my bed. I was too out of it to discuss anything with him. No matter how angry, hurt, or confused I was, going to sleep in his arms was all I wanted to do.

I didn’t think I had been asleep long when I awoke in a panic. I didn’t know where I was. I reached for the lamp but fell across Slayde onto the floor. I thought I had dreamed it all, but apparently I was wrong.

Turning on the lamp, Slayde looked down and said, “Baby, what are you doing?” That made me angry. How dare he come here and think that everything was OK? He had a pregnant girlfriend on the other side of the world, and here he was in bed with me.
What a dog!

“You don’t get to call me that anymore. Why are you here?” I grabbed my robe from the closet to cover up. He may have seen me in my panties before, but that would never happen again.

“OK, I guess you’re sober enough to talk.” He sounded abrupt, and I could tell he was aggravated. He sat with his arms crossed over his bare chest, chewing the inside of his mouth. I looked at the clock. It was 4:37 a.m.

Getting out of bed, Slayde came over to where I was standing. Even through my anger, I thought how beautiful he was, standing there in nothing but his boxer briefs. “Why do you think I’m here, Arden? You take off and leave without saying good-bye or letting anyone know where you are. Nobody has heard from you in a month. Not your sisters, not your mom. What in the hell is going on with you?”

I felt the anger I’d been bottling up for the last few weeks come flooding out. “What is wrong with me? Are you serious? Is ripping my heart out and stomping it into a million pieces not enough for you?” Tears started streaming down my face. I shouted, “You had to come here, to my home, and rub salt in the wound?” pointing my finger at his face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He took a step back and held his arms out. He really looked confused. “Me ripping your heart out? You’re the one who led me to believe everything was going to work out, and I came home to find you had packed your stuff and left without so much as a note. I have been beating myself up for weeks, trying to figure out what in the hell I did wrong.”

I was dumbfounded, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue with him. “Slayde, I can’t do this. I want you to go back to Paris. Go back to Kinley. I don’t even know why you came here.” I walked to the window. I couldn’t face him. He didn’t deserve to see me cry. I searched for something outside to concentrate on but didn’t find much. Some people were walking in from the parking lot, trying to beat the security golf cart to the dorm. Other than that, it was quiet.

“Kinley? Why would I do that?”

“Slayde, I know she’s pregnant.”

“OK, so what?”

“So what? Slayde, I really thought more of you than this. I’d love to know what Lexi thinks about all of this.”

He paused for a minute and then came over to me. “Arden, do you think I got Kinley pregnant?”

“Well, yes. Kenedy said that — ”

He cut me off. “Wait a minute. ‘Kenedy said’?”

“Yes, Kenedy came to your apartment all upset, and said she needed to talk to me. She said Kinley was pregnant with your baby.” Hearing it out loud, I realized how stupid it sounded.

At first he smiled, looking at the floor and shaking his head, but when he looked up, I could tell he was mad. His smile had faded, and his eyes were narrowed, and he wouldn’t quite look at me. “You mean to tell me this whole time, I’ve been thinking you got scared and ran? I’ve flown back and forth from Paris, trying to find you. I’ve gone to your mom’s and to your grandmother’s. Neither of them would tell me anything. I even had my mom go talk to your mom. I finally broke down and asked my dad for a favor to find out what dorm you lived in. And all of this time, you have been sitting here, thinking I cheated on you, because your sister, a known liar, told you so? You didn’t even have the decency to ask me first? I can’t believe this. You know, for someone so intelligent, you really do some stupid shit.” He put on his shorts, grabbed his shirt and shoes, and left.

What have I done?
I felt so empty and stupid. All I could do was cry. I lay down in my bed and pulled the covers over my head, but when I did that, I could smell him. Inhaling deeply, I tried to breathe him in. I couldn’t believe he had been there holding me only a few minutes before, and now he was gone. He had never been mad at me before. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know if he would ever talk to me again.

I had to get up and do something, but what? I didn’t know how to handle this. It was time to talk to Milly. Even though it was five o’clock in the morning, she still picked up her cell on the first ring.

“What’s wrong?” I could tell she had been asleep, but she was immediately on best friend duty. I just cried, and she said, “I’m on my way.” And within minutes she was in the dorm room, climbing into bed with me.

“Honey, what happened?”

“I screwed everything up. I am such an idiot. I know I never deserved him to begin with, but I can’t believe I was so careless with him,” I cried.

“What are you talking about, you never deserved him?” she asked.

“It’s obvious he is out of my league, Mills.”

She laughed loudly. “Well, someone needs to explain that to him, because I don’t think he got the memo. I was only around him a few hours last night, but when he talked about you, his whole face lit up.”

“Hours? How long was he here?”

“I found him in the lobby about an hour after you left with Eric.”

“In the lobby? What was he doing in the lobby, and how did you know he was looking for me?”