Root (Band Nerd Book 2) Page 16

  With classes, practices—band for her, football for me—her waitressing job, my studying, and football games nearly every weekend, the hours we get are precious to us. And every day I fall in love with her a little bit more. Yeah, the “L” word. I feel it, I’ve thought it, but I haven’t said it yet. I’m trying to wait until the end of the semester, my plan is that once I tell her I love her, I want to ask her to move in with me. I’ve been scoping out apartments, making sure I can find something affordable, yet better than what she has now. Not to mention the places are twice the size of the shithole she’s renting from Nathan.

  Shaking my head at the thought, I start up the steep steps leading to her apartment. Nathan is a jackass and her mom’s oblivious. Oh we had dinner with them one night. Greasy take-out served on a sticky dining room table with Nathan talking about how fucking wonderful he is, how much money he makes, and alluding to all the pussy I probably get as a Sauvage State Spartan.

  Lena hadn’t say a word and neither of us touched much of the food. Me, because it took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to punch the bastard in the face. Lena, well, when she’s around Nathan she’s not the girl I know she can be. Her mother just sat there, eyes glazed, shoveling food in her piehole without looking at anyone. There’s something off about her, something that makes my stomach twist with disgust and apprehension, but, when I asked Lena she couldn’t explain it. I have my suspicions, little things I’ve picked up over the years living with my ma, but I let it drop instead of pressing for more. I don’t want to upset Lena about her mom more than she already is.

  My girl had been embarrassed and ashamed of her family, which prompted me to spill about my own. I found myself pouring it all out to her one night as we lay in her bed. Ma, my old man, the men Ma spent her time with, and Rien. I spent a long time talking about Rien, about how I really fucking hoped he got his shit together and waved goodbye to the lifestyle he’d been thrown into. Kind of like the way I’m going to get Lena out of this apartment and away from Nathan.

  So yeah, I need to get her away from this toxic place as soon as possible. I’ve already talked with Coach Steady about finding a job. He put me in touch with one of the guys he plays flag football with who owns a landscaping business. Not ideal, but they can give me some hours to help supplement my income. The semester ends in just five weeks. If I can save enough between now and then…

  I take a deep breath and put my key in the lock. Like most Tuesday afternoons, I get off of practice before Lena gets off of work. I could go back to the dorms, but then I wouldn’t be surrounded by her scent or be there for her when she gets home. Yeah, I’m a fucking goner for my girl.

  With that thought in mind, I open the door and stop dead in my tracks.

  “What are you doing in here?” I demand with a quick scan of the apartment.

  Nathan sits at Lena’s table, that smarmy fucking smile on his face. “I see you’ve made yourself downright comfortable here,” he says, folding his arms behind his head like a man without a care in the world.

  I close the door behind me, pocketing my keys. “Is that a problem?” I can just see him charging Lena extra for an additional part-time resident.

  To my surprise he shakes his head, smile spreading. “Not at all, not at all. I’m glad y’all are so close. In fact, you could say that makes this so much easier.” He waves his hand. “Have a seat, Anders. I have a proposition for you.”

  My gaze scans the apartment again because all the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. Nothing seems out of place. Until I notice the television is on and Lena’s DVD player is blinking at the ready.

  “I’ll stand,” I say cautiously, crossing my arms over my chest.

  Nathan shakes his head. “But if you stand way over there, you won’t be able to see.” He lowers his arms to lift the remote. “It wasn’t easy finding just the right scene, you know. For a while there, I didn’t think you would find your rhythm, but you managed to find it and it’s made for some very spectacular results.” He smiles again, his muddy brown eyes gleaming with something downright evil. “So trust me, you’ll want to sit for this.”

  I have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about, but rather than take the seat he has pulled out, I drag a chair from the table and place it several feet away from him. Slowly lowering myself to the seat, I plant my palms on my knees.

  He chuckles at my slight rebellion and hits a button on the remote.

  The television sparks to life and I instantly recognize it as an overhead view of Lena’s bed. My heart leaps in my chest. What the fuck?

  There’s movement in the corner of the screen, legs slowly waltzing in the direction of the bed seconds before Lena and I appear. My hands start to shake, but I make myself watch as I gently push her onto the bed, reaching down to strip off her shorts and panties, leaving her bottom half gloriously bear.

  “Never expected her to be so eager to fuck,” Nathan says conversationally as we watch Lena brace her feet on the edge of the bed, spreading her knees wide with a sultry smile on her pretty face. “Wish her mama was as easy.”

  It was that night. The one when I realized I loved her, playing out before me like a motherfucking porno. I stare at the screen, shocked to my core as I realize what Nathan’s done, why he’s so smug. Hatred, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, rises to the surface and my hands curl into hard fists.

  Not that he seems to notice. “There were lots of scenes almost as good, but this one was by far the best. You know, if the football thing doesn’t work out, you could probably go professional. You sure as shit tamed that fat ass with your monster cock.” He laughs again.

  But it soon ends when I lunge out of my chair, my hands curling around his scrawny fucking throat. “I’ll kill you,” I whisper as we hit the floor. “I’m going to kill you right here, right now.”

  His face starts to turn red. He thrashes under me, but I’m not giving up. He’s a monster. A monster whose invasion ruined a precious moment and violated the woman I love in a way that would destroy her.

  “Copy,” he chokes out as his face darkens even more. “Copy. Hurt. Me. Goes. Live.”

  His words pierce the cloud of rage swirling around my brain and I loosen my hold on his throat, but I don’t move. Oh no, this motherfucker isn’t going anywhere. Not until I’m good and ready.

  “What?” I ask in a voice that’s more reminiscent of my old man’s than my own.

  Nathan’s Adam’s apple bobs as he tries to catch his breath again, glaring at me. As though I give a fuck. He’s lucky he isn’t dead right now and my glower has him dropping his gaze.

  “That’s just a copy,” he says in a raspy voice. “The original with everything I’ve recorded spliced together goes live if you go to the police or try to hurt me.” My fingers go numb and I sit up, shock leaving me mute and immobile. His sneer is full of triumph. “Unless you and I can come to an agreement that benefits us both, that is…”

  Lena

  I park next to Anders’ truck, turning my car off and hopping out with a song in my heart and a smile on my face. Happiness isn’t something I can remember feeling in a very long time, probably since Dad died, but now it feels as though my life has done a complete one-eighty. Lots of orgasms apparently make a girl feel invincible.

  Of course, they also leave a girl with a lot of daydreams, sore thighs, and a craving for even more. I’m pretty sure my friends know exactly why I’ve been walking around with my head in the clouds, although they’ve been good enough not to say it out loud. The smirks and knowing looks though… Yeah. I get lots of those. Besides, it’s not as though any of them can talk. Jolene’s still with Josef, Becca’s still going through guys like tissue paper, and Nessie… Hmm, she’s got a secret none of us have been able to uncover, but, then again, I’ve been so wrapped up in Anders I haven’t tried very hard either. God, I’m a horrible friend.

  Making a mental promise to have some girl time with them all to catch up, I sprint up the stairs despi
te the six hour shift I just finished and the ache in my feet. Why? Because Anders is here. My heart skips a beat as I reach the landing and throw open the door.

  “Honey, I’m hooome,” I belt out before I even clear the doorway. Tense silence and darkness greets me, causing me to drop my arms. “Anders?”

  I flick on the light, the brightness piercing my eyes before I’m able to focus on the man hunched over my dining room table. He doesn’t move when I close the door and something in the way he holds himself has me dropping everything in the middle of the floor and hurrying to him.

  “Anders?” I ask, reaching out to touch him. “Baby? What happened?”

  The minute my fingers brush his hair, he shoots out of the chair, moving away from me as though…

  I don’t know what it’s like, since I’ve never had anyone react to me like this, especially Anders, who’s very tactile, and it’s enough to stop me in my tracks. I stare at him, my brain cataloging everything in snapshots to analyze later.

  His hair is all over the place as though he’s been running his hands through it, pulling at the strands. The blue eyes I love so much seem brighter than ever, but that’s only because the whites of his eyes are bloodshot, the lids rimmed in red. His lips are tight and thin, his cheeks pale yet with hectic spots of color. If I didn’t know how much Anders hated drugs, I’d think he was on something. He looks like a hot mess.

  “What happened?” I whisper, my heart starting to pick up tempo.

  He can’t hold my gaze, his eyes darting away from me as though he can’t stand to look at me. It’s like a shot to the heart and my feet lock in place. I don’t know what to do, but I swear I see my happiness slipping away from me.

  “Anders?”

  He reaches up to press the heels of his palms into his eyes, his face turning red behind his hands. When he drops them again, it’s as though he’s a blank slate. The man I’ve grown to love is cold and unapproachable, his face hard, his eyes sharp.

  “I thought I could do this,” he says more to himself than to me. He shakes his head. His throat clicks and I know whatever this is, isn’t as easy as his voice indicates. “I can’t. I have to go.”

  “What?”

  But he doesn’t answer.

  I stand rooted to the spot as he grabs something off the table and starts toward me, moving fast. I can’t take my eyes off of him, my heart shredding in my chest when he edges around me as though he can’t stand the thought of touching me. I turn to watch him move for the door, his long legs eating the distance like it’s nothing.

  This is it? This is how what we have ends?

  My soul asks the questions, but I don’t have any answers because I don’t understand what’s going on. I thought everything was going perfectly. I thought he loved me as much as I love him, even though neither of us has said the words. And yet he’s just walking out on me. No explanation. No excuses.

  I still can’t seem to move as he flings open the door, pausing for a split second before he shakes his head and slams it closed behind him. The reverberation is like a gunshot in my tiny apartment, the target my heart. I glance down, half thinking I’m bleeding from the excruciating pain, but my white work blouse is pristine, my body whole.

  What the fuck are you doing? He can’t just walk away! Go after him, dammit!

  My brain screams the commands at me, firing neurons and chemicals that speed through me. No way. No fucking way is he going to just walk away from me without giving me a good reason.

  I don’t even register my legs working, my brain operating separately from everything else as I sprint out of my apartment, the door slamming closed behind me, and down the stairs. The hum of his Bronco’s engine starting up is amplified by the fear that I won’t catch him before he leaves. But I know I’ll go after him. Maybe that makes me pathetic, a clingy girl, but he can’t just leave like this. I deserve more from him. And it’s that knowledge that gives me the speed to make it to the passenger side of his truck just as he’s starting to back out of my drive.

  Without thinking of the consequences, the danger, I throw open the door and fling myself onto the bench seat just as it begins to roll backwards. The door catches on my legs, but I don’t give a shit.

  “Lena!” Anders shouts, stomping on the brakes hard enough to roll me off the seat. I hit the floorboard with a thud, but the adrenaline makes it impossible to feel anything except pissed off. Plus the sudden stop throws the door open again, freeing my legs. For the win. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  His face twists with concern, fear for me, and that gives me the strength to push forward, to insist on knowing what the hell is going on. I grunt and twist myself so I can sit on the seat and close the door. “I’m going wherever you’re going,” I say with a lot more calm than I feel.

  “Get out,” he says through clenched teeth, facing forward again.

  I cross my arms. “No.”

  “Goddammit, get out of my fucking truck. Now,” he roars at me.

  Idly, wondering if I’ve lost my mind, that I left it somewhere in my apartment with my heart, I blink at him. “No. Not until you at least tell me why you’re leaving.”

  The steering wheel creaks in his hand, the leather protesting his grip. “We’re over. Through. I’m breaking up with you. Now get your ass out of my fucking truck.”

  Okay, no my heart is definitely still in my chest because it’s ripped to pieces. In fact, I think I’m falling to pieces. Hm, Patsy Cline knew what she was talking about when she sang that song. And I’m officially losing my mind.

  “Why?” I ask quietly.

  Anders is breathing hard, the muscles in his arms and shoulders tensing, but he won’t look at me. Then he lets out a harsh laugh. “Look, I got what I wanted from you,” he says, his voice empty. “I thought I could keep playing along, but while your pussy’s good, it isn’t that good.” He flicks a glance at me that kills me. “Have some respect for yourself and just go before you look even more pathetic than you do now.”

  There’s no oxygen in the truck. That has to be the reason I can’t breathe. Either that, or I’m dead. I reach up to touch the center of my chest and yes, my heart’s still beating. But I can’t breathe. Weird. I also, strangely enough, can’t cry. It’s like every function in my body has ceased, except for my heart pumping blood through my veins. That’s happening independent of my soul.

  “I see,” I whisper through a mouthful of dust, saliva a thing of the past.

  “Good. Now get out.”

  I rub my sternum. It hurts. Forget about a heart attack, this is like cardiac brutality. It’s as though someone just took it out, stabbed it about a thousand times, stomped on it with steel-toes, then put it in a blender on puree, before stuffing it back inside my chest. But it still beats, this stubborn organ.

  Blindly reaching out for the door handle, it takes a few tries before I find it and open the door. The dome light comes on, illuminating the profile of the man I love. It’s one last look, torture really, but I can’t seem to help myself. Once you give your heart the way I have, it isn’t yours anymore. It’s theirs. So yeah, I give my heart, my soul, one last look because I’ll miss it.

  And if it wasn’t for that, I would’ve missed the streak of moisture sliding down his cheek. One single, crystalline tear that streaks over his tanned skin before disappearing. Like a shooting star, it’s there and gone in the blink of an eye, but something about it makes the lump of shredded tissue in my chest swell.

  I close the door again.

  “I told you to get the fuck out,” he says in a rough voice.

  “And I said I’m not getting out until you tell me why you’re leaving.”

  “I just fucking did!” The words are a scream, assaulting my eardrums, making my blood pump faster, hotter, as anger finally flickers to life. He slams his palm on the steering wheel. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

  “I want you to tell me the truth!” I scream back at him. “I want you to stop lying to me and tell me what’
s wrong because I call bullshit. Do you hear me? Bull. Shit!”

  I’ve never been so…so angry before. Not even when Nathan sold Dad’s belongings. This is something else, something hotter and more painful than that. Which can only mean my love for Anders is stronger than anything else I’ve ever felt. And I can’t just let it go without fighting for it.

  “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me,” I say a little calmer.

  He makes a sound that’s a choked laugh of disbelief. Anders takes a deep breath and lets it out, his shoulders slumping as though he no longer has the strength to remain upright. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew,” he says softly, resting his forehead on the steering wheel.

  “No, you are. You’ve given me confidence in myself. You’ve taught me to fight for what I want and right now I’m fighting for you. For us. Which means I’m not going to let you go without knowing the truth.”

  “You want to know the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  He takes another breath and nods. “Fine.” He shuts off the truck and climbs out, grabbing a DVD case. “Let’s go inside.”

  I should’ve felt relief that he was at least going to talk to me about it, but all I feel is dread as I follow him up the stairs to my apartment.

  Anders

  I’m a weak motherfucker. I should’ve left as soon as Nathan dropped his ultimatum. I should’ve been long gone to avoid Lena and the misery this will bring her, but I’m weak. I had to see her beautiful face one more time before I lost her. There’s no doubt in my mind; she’s going to hate me. It’s why I thought it would be best to just leave. Better she hate me for leaving her rather than her seeing what I’m about to show her. But I should’ve known better. Lena’s stubborn. And sweet. I just hadn’t expected her to fight me so hard.