Torn to Pieces (The Boys of DownCrash #2) (new adult contemporary romance / rockstar romance) (11 page)

“So I’m messed up?” I asked.

“You were last night.  Why?”

“I told you, I didn’t want to be alone.”

“But why?  Sometimes it’s good to be alone.  To sit and think.  To relax.  To just enjoy your own company.”

“I don’t think I make very good company.”

The conversation started to move towards a place I wasn’t comfortable with.  But I was stuck.  I had Tatum in my bed.  We were both naked.  Our bodies together.  His arms had casually worked their way around me, holding me tight.  I’m sure if I asked he would have let me go, but I couldn’t be sure he’d ever hold me again.

“Did someone break your heart?” he asked.

“Not just my heart,” I said.  “More like... like my soul...”

I blinked and my eyes were full of tears.

Fuck. 

I didn’t want to cry.  I hated to cry.  And if it were a few years ago, I wouldn’t have been allowed to cry.  Because I promised I wouldn’t.

Never break a promise.  Ever.  Trust me.  You never want to break a promise...

“Christ, Maggie, you’re shaking right now,” Tatum said.  “Are you... afraid?  Is it because of me?”

I shook my head.  “No.  Not you.”

“But someone?”

I nodded.

Tatum’s face started to look angry.  His grip on me went from loving to protective, a man perhaps ready to kill.  I thought about him punching Danny again...

“Was it Danny?” he asked.

“No, not him.  I mean, sure, he’s part of it all.  But that’s only because of what I said about myself.  He thought he could land an easy score.  Which, if it were a month ago...”

“Don’t say things like that,” Tatum said.  “Who hurt you?”

“He’s not on campus.  Not even at our school.”

“I didn’t ask that.  I asked who he was.”

I blinked, feeling a tear leave my right eye.  It ran down my face to the pillow, quickly absorbing into the cloth.

“You can tell me anything,” Tatum said.  “I’ll protect you.”

“Why me?  What have I done?”

“You don’t think I’ve noticed you?” Tatum asked.  “I may not be like Tripp, going after what I want so quick, but I see.  Oh, trust me, I see.  You were at a table with friends.  Laughing.  Nibbling on your straw, trying to look sexy and flirty when you should have realized you already look that way without doing a thing.”

I opened my mouth, but Tatum kept talking.

“I saw you in the crowd, screaming and singing.  You came to the garage with Scarlett.  Flirting.  Touching my cymbals.  I hate when people touch my cymbals.  I hate seeing fingerprints on them.  But yours... I left them there, Maggie.”

I didn’t know what to say.  Here I had thought of myself as some desperate girl, needing Tatum, but his eyes had done the same romantic journey through me too.

“I don’t know what to say right now,” I said.  “I’m not used to the after-the-night stuff.”

“Aw, is this your first sleepover?” Tatum teased.  “You’re growing up.”

“Stop it.”

“Come on, tell me who the guy is.”

I closed my eyes, ready to mutter his name.  I’d thought it a lot, probably at least once a day, but to actually say his name...

“Derreck,” I whispered and shuddered with fear.

“Derreck,” Tatum said.  “Sounds like an asshole already.”

“Because of his name?” I asked.

“No.  Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I nodded and swallowed, feeling a rush of emotions hit me that I thought were long gone.  I couldn’t believe I could feel this way, with Tatum naked in bed with me.  Something so right mixing with something so wrong.

Fuck.

“It’s okay,” Tatum said.  “If it’s that bad...”

“No.  I mean, yeah, it’s really that bad, but you want to know.  I want to tell.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Hold me tighter,” I whispered. I put my head against Tatum’s chest.

The next tear that fell hit his chest.  I didn’t care.  He asked for this.  I figured if I told him everything and he left, at least I got it all off my chest.  Maybe then I could move on, survive, and actually start enjoying myself because, face it, sex was great.  Sex with Tatum was explosive and body aching, but I did enjoy sex.  Without worry, guilt, and regret. 

Tatum’s grip on me was fierce, exactly what I wanted.  His left hand buried itself in my hair, playing with a gentleness that made me think of sex... I thought of him doing the same thing except pulling at my hair. 

What the hell was wrong with me?

His other hand started to move up and down my back, soothing me, relaxing me, leaving the bedroom completely silent until I decided to talk.

“He was literally everything I had,” I said.  “He came into my life right at what I thought was the perfect time.  My mother married her boyfriend, which should have been a good thing, but her boyfriend didn’t want me around.  He didn’t want a daughter, he wanted a wife.  And he wasn’t afraid to tell me that or remind me of that.  My mother married him and justified the way he treated me by actually telling me that in a few years I’d be on my own and it would be unfair for her to be alone because of me?”

I sighed a whimpering sigh.  Sometimes I really hated feelings.

“Mother of the year,” Tatum whispered.  “I had one of those too.”

“I never met my father so I had nobody to turn to except my best friend, Annie.  But the summer all this happened, she went away with her mother to Florida for the entire summer.  It was right after her mother caught her father cheating and things were a mess.  They needed to get away and it was the only thing that saved Annie’s mother from leaving for good.  That would have probably killed me.  But during all that I met Derreck.  He had a motorcycle and bright blue eyes.  The perfect mix of innocence and bad boy.  There was something about him that made me believe he could save me.”

“Did he save you?” Tatum asked.

I listened to Tatum’s heartbeat.  Staying calm, for now, because I knew that wouldn’t last for much longer.

“He saved me in the sense of taking me away from myself.”

“What does that mean?”

“First, it was just my own little obsession.  To be near him.  With him.  Then he slowly turned the tables and forced me to obsess over him.  He made me promise on our first date that we’d wait three months to have sex.  I was a virgin and it sounded so sweet... but he was serious.”

Promise me, Maggie.  I can take anything but I can’t take a broken promise.  To me, a broken bone is easier to deal with than a broken promise.

“... When two months came, he forced me to have sex with him.”

“He raped you?” Tatum growled.

“No, not quite.  He didn’t hold me down.  He just... I don’t know... mentally beat me up I guess.  Everything was about the promise we made.  But that was the first of many promises I had to make.  When I finally got sick of it, I broke a promise.  I promised to help him steal money from our high school and when I backed out, he tried, got caught, and got expelled.  I thought that would be it with him, but he kept coming around.  He forced me to keep being his girlfriend and since I broke a promise I was punished.”

“Punished?  What does that mean?”

I started to shake. 

He shuts the door.  He locks it.  My body cringes.  Usually when he locks the door, that means we’re going to fuck.  He sometimes fucks with kindness, seeking pleasure.  Most of the time it’s out of anger.  He wants to take his frustrations out... and he does it on me, or actually, in me. 

Today is different.

“You fucked me over,” he says in a smooth voice.

“I told you I couldn’t do that,” I say.  “That money was for charity...”

“You promised,” he says.  “You broke your promise.”

“You can get into another school,” I say.  “You know tha...”

The last ‘t’ is slapped from my mouth.  I hear the crack and see spit flying out of my mouth before I feel the pain.  I feel the pain before my mind registers what just happened. 

Derreck... hit me.

I touch my jaw.

It’s sore.

So sore.

I look at Derreck and his hand is coming at me again.

I shouldn’t have broken my promise.

“I shouldn’t have broken my promise,” I whispered.

Tatum squeezed me tighter as more tears fell from my eyes.  The erotic moment with Tatum had been destroyed now.  I wasn’t sure if romance existed then.  It was now tragedy hour... while naked.

“I’m so sorry, Maggie,” Tatum said.  “If I was there...”

“You weren’t,” I said.  “And I can’t go back.”

“How many times?”

“Enough times,” I said.  “I didn’t keep track.  But it only happened when we were alone.”

“That’s why you hate being alone,” Tatum said.  “I understand.”

“And Derreck was afraid of other guys,” I said.  “As weird as that sounds.  He would get awkward if it wasn’t his group of guys.”

“Makes sense.  My mom’s boyfriends used to smack her around too.  Those are the guys who are nothing but giant pussies.  I beat the shit out of one of my mother’s boyfriends once.  I made him cry like a little baby.  Thankfully I did it when I was seventeen... kept me out of jail.”

“I’m sorry I’m so fucked up,” I said.  “That’s why I’m not used to this next morning stuff.  I just like the company until everything is chased out of me.  Then I come home, sleep it all off, and do it again.  And again.  And again.”

Tatum rolled towards me then on top of me.  “No more of that.  No more chasing shit away, Maggie.  I’m here now.”

“Tatum... that’s not fair to you.  You have a life.  We’re just fooling around right now.  Aren’t we?”

“Are we?” Tatum asked.  “The way my heart’s racing right now, it’s more than fooling around.”

“We don’t know each other.”

“Yeah we do.  You know what I do.  I know what you do.”

“What do I do then?”

“Me,” Tatum said and smiled.

I bit my lip and slowly opened my legs.  I felt Tatum touch me.  He was hard again.  I swallowed and nodded, wanting him.  He touched my face and for the first time in my life I understood what it felt like to make love. 

Fucking was hotter but making love started to pull the pieces of my heart back together again.

~10~

I stood shoulder to shoulder with Scarlett.  We watched DownCrash play a show and I felt like I was someone special in the jam packed college bar.  Every table was full, the bar flooded with people, the floor dangerously full.  And yet, in the midst of that, Scarlett and I were able to stand in a special spot, near all the sound equipment because we were
with the band
. 

Watching Tatum play and sing did something to me.  I knew my eyes had to be glistening much like Scarlett’s did when I watched her stare at Tripp.  I totally understood it all now.  What it meant.  How it felt to know that the person on stage would come home to you.  While all the girls in the crowd screamed and wanted their own rockstar fantasy to come to life, I knew mine would.  My fantasy would step from the stage, a sweaty mess, grab me, and carry me away.

And that’s just what Tatum did. 

Scarlett was a little more skittish around Tripp after a show, unsure about the feeling of his sweat pouring all over her.  It seemed odd to me that she would act like that, but it didn’t matter to me.  Tatum tossed his drumsticks into the crowd and came to me.  His eyes were dead set on mine and he lifted me for an after show kiss.  He pulled me tight and I felt the sweat transferring from him to me.  All that did was make me think of sex.  I licked his lip ring at any chance I could get and we were then treated to free food and drinks.

All because I was
with the band
. 

People didn’t care about who I used to be.  They cared about who I was right then.  Maggie
the party girl
,
the slut
,
was suddenly Maggie
the really pretty girl who gets to sleep with Tatum
.  It worked for me because out of all the false things that had been said about me, finally something held true. 

I got to sleep with Tatum.

After the show we went back to the garage and I got to watch the boys of DownCrash set up their equipment.  It amazed me that they were so dedicated to their music and their lives to do such work.  People thought the band just showed up and played but there was much more to it.  Tatum had to take apart his entire drum kit, pack it up in the band’s trailer, then haul it to a show to be set up.  Then he had to take it apart, bring it back to the garage, and set it up again.