Under the Cornerstone (2 page)

"I ate Chinese."

"You fucking did it,” he sighs. “From where?" he asks quickly.

"New China Wok."

That's my favorite so it was an easy lie.

"What did you order?"

I roll my eyes, "Sweet and Sour Chicken." 

"What time did you go?" He asks.

"Fuck Johnny! On my lunch break!" I yell.

"You eat lunch at twelve and unless New China Wok was open only for you today, they've been shut down for restorations for a week. The sign on the door says they won't open back up for another week."

Well, fuck me.

I sigh because I know I’ve been caught.

"Why aren't you here, Noles?" He asks with his sweet voice.

I hate his sweet voice. I can't say no or lie to his sweet voice.

"I just can't make it. I'm sorry. It's killing me not to be there. Please don't be mad at me. I'm so proud of you guys. I truly am," I feed him what truth I can.

I wait for a response.

Zilch.

I wait for several more seconds.

Nothing. 

"Johnny?" 

Nothing.

I look downwards at my phone and see I'm babbling to myself... Because he hung up on me!

Uh oh, right? He's two blocks away. It takes less than ten minutes. Fuck.

I pick through my makeup bag and cake on more concealer, cover it with powder, and do it again. I grab a Yankees cap and throw it on my head and then realize how stupid it looks with my mini dress. I rush to my bedroom and find a pair of blue jeans and a long sleeve shirt to cover the bruises on my arms. I slide my feet in a couple of chucks as the rap comes at the door.

I rush back to the bathroom and throw all my makeup back in its bag and then chunk it in a drawer. I look in the mirror one last time. 

I did the best I could.

"Open the fucking door, Noely!" Johnny shouts from the other side.

"Stop shouting!" I yell back at him. 

I rush to the door and throw it open. 

He narrows his blue eyes at me and scowls.

"What's wrong with your lip?" He asks.

Damn, I forgot to cake on lip gloss.

"Nothing.  Why aren't you at your party?" I shoot back and turn around leaving him at the door.

He slams the door and shuffles behind me. 

"Noely!" he raises his voice at me.

"What?" I turn around and yell back. 

He gives me the death glare, and then he steps to me quickly and grabs my bicep. I wince in pain and he drops my arm like it's on fire.

He looks my face over, knocks the hat off my head, and grabs me by the hand. I'm led into the bathroom.

"Why are you being such an asshole?" I seethe at him. 

"You lied to me. You never lie to me. You want to pull some shit over on the twins? Go right ahead, but you've never lied to me!" he turns to me as he finishes his rant. 

Hurt outlines his face and now I feel even shittier than I already did. 

Before I realize what he's doing, he lifts a wet cloth to my face and wipes the three thousand pounds of makeup off my cheek. I bat him away and try to push past him. Johnny picks me up under my arms and sets me on the vanity.

"It's too late now, Noe baby. Sit there while I take all this shit off. Don't you dare fight me on this."

I fight him anyways. He's always been intuitive and astute, but knowing he might know and knowing he actually knows are two entirely different scenarios. 

Plausible deniability and all.

He wraps his arms around me and pulls me to his chest. I try to wiggle out of his hold to no avail.

"Let me go!" I scream at the edge of hysterics.

"Tell me what happened,” he says softly.

"It's none of your damn business!"

Johnny rips me from his chest and holds me by my shoulders. The tears well up in my eyes. I grew up with him and all the other hard knocks in the neighborhood. I'm not a crier, and if I feel the need to cry, I do it in private.

"You're wrong. If it has to do with you, it’s always my damn business,” he tells me.

I look away. I'm too ashamed to look him in the eye. I let this happen to me. I saw the signs. I made excuses before Tony got physical. I stayed. That makes me an idiot and forgive me for not wanting everyone to know. I sure as hell don't want the guys I grew up with knowing I became that girl. The girl we never understood. The girl we talked shit about.

"Go back to your party," I whisper. 

"That's not where I want to be,” he replies.

I laugh sarcastically, "Right. Johnny fucking Rome never turns down a party, especially one thrown in his honor."

I push him away and walk into my room. I pull the shirt and jeans off not caring that he's here. Gently, I crawl between the covers as the stiffness in my body begins to set in. 

I hear him talking to someone on the phone, so I hope he'll just get the hell out of here and let me be. I can drown in my misery right by my lonesome.

Next, I hear water running and instead of investigating I roll my eyes and throw the covers over my head. I shut my eyes and hope I fall into a coma. An actual coma, so I don't have to deal with this shit. A week long coma should work just fine. I'll wake up with "short-term memory loss" and the whole nine yards. 

Nope. Can't remember shit. Sorry folks.

My bed dips on the opposite side and a large, calloused hands reach under the covers for me. They land on the skin of my stomach and momentarily stills before they grab hold and pull me to him. My back melts into his chest as he snuggles me into him.

"I'm sorry I yelled,” he whispers in my ear and even in my current state of undoing it reaches somewhere deep inside. 

Somewhere it shouldn't. 

"You're an asshole," I say softly.

"Sometimes. I'm not mad at you, but nobody puts their hands on you like that. I told you that a long time ago."

Johnny and I became friends late in grade school. I was the tomboy and the girls were as mean as runny cat shit. Johnny took up for me one day when some stupid cunt put glue in my hair. We've been friends ever since.

The twins (Rich and Ryan) and Jimmy joined us in middle school, right about the same time my mom died, leaving me to a neglectful stepfather who liked my social security check more than he liked to remember I was there. 

When I was twelve, my stepfather came into my room one night drunk off his ass and tried to feel me up. I put the palm of my little hand in his nose and ran away into the night. 

I missed school for a week as I ducked and dodged through Brooklyn afraid the bastard would find me. Johnny's dad found me at his favorite deli begging for a handout a week later. I was dirty, cold and hungry. 

The man has always been nice to me and for some reason I trusted him to tell him what happened. My shit was packed from my stepfather's apartment that night, and I spent the next three years bouncing between all the boy’s houses. Each parent tried to set me up a room permanently, but I was always too scared to wear out my welcome. I was lucky to have them, but I didn't have anyone else. I was too afraid to end up in the system. 

When I was fifteen, Johnny's dad put a stop to that shit. He rented a three-bedroom apartment and moved me in. He made sure my social security checks were used to feed and clothe me, and the other parents saw after me as well. 

Johnny was the one who told me about my period, helped me buy my first bra, and beat the shit out of the boy who took my virginity. 

The guys protected me. They made sure I went to college, and helped me find my first apartment. I went to college and anytime I thought about giving it up, I was promptly put in my place by all my friends and their parents. 

But I wanted to do this on my own. It's a life lesson I have to learn, because Johnny and company won't always be there to pick up the pieces. 

"I didn’t want anyone to know," I admit.

"Too late for that."

"That’s not your decision to make."

"I made it, Noles."

"Well, those times are coming to an end. You guys will be on tour. It's time I live my own life," I tell him. 

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he snaps.

I don't answer him because I'm tired and there's no energy left to fight with him.

He flips me over to face him and I wince. 

"Answer me,” he demands. 

"I'm tired," I answer. “I don’t want anyone else to know, Johnny. You made it your business, but not a word to anyone else.”

He pulls the cover off of us, steps off the bed and scoops me up in his arms. I don't fight him this time, and once again I could care less that I'm only in a bra and panties. 

He places me on the bathroom vanity once again and gently wipes the makeup off. He winces as the black and blue is uncovered. My cuts are covered with peroxide and ointment, and then he brushes my hair for me. He then pulls his cell out and documents the damage. 

After he snaps photos of the bruises on my arms, he continues to my ribs. His fingers touch the spot on my ribs softly dragging the tips up and down. 

I turn my head, ashamed all over again that he knows, that he sees me like this. 

"You deserve better than this, Noely."

I swallow any response I could've made because it just doesn't matter. I may deserve better, but that’s not what I got, it has never been what I’ve gotten.

"You deserve so much fucking more,” he whispers and pulls my chin up until I'm looking him in the eye. 

"This stays between us," my lip quivers at the thought of all my friends discovering who

I've let myself become.

He searches my face, but his eyes keep moving to my lips, and something new and different erupts inside of me.

Chapter Two

He leans in so slowly that I see it coming. There was no way I could mistake what was going to happen. He gave me time to make a decision. I could've turned my head. I could've found a way to get out of it, but I didn’t. I let him kiss me, busted lip and all.

His lips press sweetly against mine as his hands cup my face with care.

I know when his tongue pushes into my mouth that we've crossed a line. Call it vulnerability or curiosity, but I step over that line with him willingly. He tastes like tequila and cigarettes, the things I always imagined men like him would taste like. 

He kisses me for what seems like forever, and I give him everything back that he throws at me. Our hands start to wander, his gentler than mine. Next thing I know I'm lifted in the air, his hands on my hips, and my legs wrap around his middle. 

It takes less than a minute before he places me on the bed and I'm lying on my back. His body is between my legs, rubbing his hard dick against my panties. 

He pulls away just enough to speak, "Fuck."

Johnny looks deep into my eyes and searches for something, but I'm not quite sure what. 

"Tell me no,” he begs. 

I wish my response had been an immediate and resounding no. I wish there had been no hesitation on my part. I wish I could say I didn't want this with him, or that I knew what in the hell I was doing. 

When he receives no response from me he leans down and kisses me again as if one more will make the decision for us. Maybe it does. I push my fingertips up his lower back and push the shirt up until I pull it over his head. The kiss is broken for a second before he dives back in as gently as he can. 

Fingertips push under my back and unhook my bra, before he pulls the straps down my arms and breaks away from my mouth. He takes a long look at my breasts and slowly drags his fingertips along the peaks and valley. 

This is what I always thought sex would be like instead of the machine gun pumping and clumsy fondling I've grown accustomed to. A man has never given me an orgasm and I've sure as fuck never felt worshipped or adored. 

"I always knew you'd be this beautiful," Johnny says and lowers himself back down to kiss me once again. 

A finger plays at the top hem of my panties, so I play with the top hem of his jeans in return.  My touch makes him moan into my mouth while he makes me squirm not able to take much more. 

I unbutton his jeans and push them down with his boxers. I feel him freed against my stomach and reach down for him, but his hand grabs my wrist to stop me abruptly bringing our kiss to a stop as well. 

"Fuck, Noely. If you touch me, I won't be able to stop,” he whispers through labored breathing.

I'm not sure whether he really wants this to stop or not, so I freeze and stare back at him with confusion in my eyes. It's the same uncertainty his own eyes are filled with. 

Have we already gone too far? What happens after? What happens to all these years of friendship? Can you really ignore the fact that you fucked someone, maybe you shouldn't have?

Before I can ask myself all the important questions, his fingers touch the tops of my thighs while his eyes bore into me. Then they move to the edge of my panties inside my right leg. He watches me intensely while he pushes the fabric to the side, and slides the pad of his finger up the middle of me. 

I close my eyes and moan because he's barely touching me and I'm about to come unglued.

"Shit," is his reply to the moan.

His finger slides inside of me making me call out a "fuck". 

"God, Noe."

I reach down and grab him more out of instinct than conscious thought. He hisses in pleasure and his finger disappears. He quickly kicks off his pants and holds them up to dig into a pocket. He produces a condom and tears the packet with his teeth. Once he's sheathed, he wastes no time ripping my panties down my leg. 

I think he's going to give me what he made me want, but he stops short and bends down to my pussy. My legs are yanked over his shoulder and he begins to lick me. 

"Oh fuck," I yell louder than I really mean to. 

"Tastes so fucking good,” he speaks against my lips and goes back to licking and fingering me. 

I've never been a fan of receiving oral, but now I know what all the fuss is about. My fingers push through his blonde hair and hold on for dear life as I teeter towards oblivion. I clench down right before I come and he pulls his fingers out of me and kisses his way up my stomach.