Faster We Burn (3 page)

I was actually a little shocked that Stryker was willing to give it a go again, but then he was a guy and I was a girl who was willing to have sex with him. No attachment, no feelings, no clingy girlfriend behavior. Most guys dreamed of that. The only thing that bothered me about our arrangement was the fact that he’d started giving me his opinion. I should probably institute a no-talking rule.

Lottie was reading when I came back from Stryker’s, feeling satisfied physically, but shitty otherwise.

“Hey, where have you been? I wanted to know if you were coming to dinner.” She put a bookmark in the book and set it down on her desk.
To Kill A Mockingbird
, of course.

“Just went out for a little while. I needed a breather after finding all of this,” I waved my hand at the presents.

“Yeah I was going to ask, but then I figured it out. He’s getting good with the grand gestures, isn’t he?  I guess he’s had lots of practice.”

“Whatever.” I gathered up the stuff and shoved it under my bed.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Stryker was out of my sight, but he wasn’t out of my mind.

That night Lottie went to stay with Zan and I was alone, I found a
Law and Order
marathon and put that on, but the room felt too big. Like it was going to swallow me whole. I paced and bit my nails and picked up my phone and scrolled through the numbers. I couldn’t call Britt or Karina or Ashley. Speaking of them, I still had a wall full of pictures of all of us, and quite a few of me with Zack. No, I couldn’t call them. Those girls who would have told me, once again, that Zack was a great guy and I should figure out how to make it work. Their grinning faces mocked me, so I turned my back on the wall.

I also couldn’t call Audrey or Trish. They’d drop everything and come over and be all comforting and hover like helicopters, and that wasn’t what I needed either. I was surrounded by a whole bunch of people and I’d never felt more alone.

I’d known before I picked up my phone who I was going to call. I also knew that he’d pick up.

“Hi,” I said when he answered after the second ring.

“Hey. Is something wrong? I can ask you that when you call me in the middle of the night, right?” He only sounded half-awake, his voice husky.

“No, nothing’s wrong, per se. I’m just here. Alone.” I laughed a little. It seemed like a stupid reason to call when I said it out loud. “I’m sorry for calling you.”

“Don’t hang up,” he said, as if he sensed that I was going to. “I wasn’t asleep, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. No, I did not need to think about Stryker’s pants, or what was in them.

“Oh, good.” We both breathed in unison for a moment.

“What
were
you doing?” Maybe I didn’t want to know the answer. I almost heard him formulating a snarky response, but he chose the truth instead.

“Drawing.”

“Drawing?” I could see that, I guess. With the tattoos and everything.

“Yeah. I’ll show sometime. If you decide you want whatever this is to extend beyond merely a physical distraction.”

I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “Right now I don’t need a physical distraction. Just a verbal one.”

I heard the smile in his voice. “I think I can do that.”

So he started talking. About how he still didn’t know what he wanted to do when he graduated, even though he’d already gotten internship offers from more than a few companies. About his favorite bands and how he felt the first time he heard The Beatles and how he’d taught himself to play most of his instruments and read music. I listened as he talked and the passion in his voice was so strong that it made me sad, and jealous that I didn’t feel like that about anything.

I remembered feeling that way about things in the past, but it had been years. I missed it.

“What’s your favorite song?” I said to try to distract myself from my depressing lack of passion.

“I don’t have a favorite song. I have a current favorite song. It changes a lot. I have different favorite songs for different situations.”

“What’s your favorite song right now?”

He answered without hesitation.

“‘Demons’ by Imagine Dragons.”

“I’ve never heard it,” I said. I thought I’d heard Lottie mention the band once or twice, but it didn’t sound like anything I would listen to.

“I’ll play it for you.” I heard him set the phone down and put it on speaker. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” Of course he had a guitar. I would have been surprised if he didn’t.

“I’ll be right back. Hold on.” I waited and heard him crashing around getting something. “Sorry about that. Needed to find the right instrument. Haven’t quite learned this one on the violin yet, so you get the boring guitar version.”

“I’m fine with that.” He played the violin? Now that was a shocker.

He laughed before he started strumming, and then he began to sing. His voice had a rough quality that pulled at something inside me. I found myself breathing quieter, clutching the phone to my ear and turning the volume all the way up so I could hear him better.

Since I’d never heard the original, I didn’t know how his version compared, but it sounded damn good to me. I heard him put aside the guitar and pick up the phone again.

“So that’s my favorite song. Sorry about those little screw ups on the second chorus. I’m still working on the arrangement.”

“What screw ups?” I honestly hadn’t heard any. He’d been flawless.

He laughed.

“Never mind. So how am I doing on verbal distracting?”

I didn’t want to blow up his ego too much. “I’m impressed with your skills.”

“If you ever want to experience more of my skills in the physical distracting department, I’d be more than happy to share them with you.”

I rolled my eyes, which he couldn’t see, but he probably knew I was doing it anyway. “Yeah, I bet you do. Guys always talk a big game but when the time comes to deliver, they can’t.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can walk the walk.” There was a fluttering below my waist that I tried to ignore. That lasted about five seconds.

“Come over. Right now.” The words were out of my mouth before I even knew I was saying them.

He paused before he said, “No.”

“No?”

“No. I’m not just some guy you can call for a fuck anytime you want. You called me for verbal distractions and you want physical ones in the same night? Sorry, sweetheart. You don’t always get what you want.”

I was about to say something, but the call cut off. He hung up on me. I hit redial right away. What the hell?

No answer.

I tried again.

No answer.

I texted him and got back a response a second later.

I’m going to bed. You probably should too. Get your beauty sleep. To be continued

I typed an angry response and then deleted it before typing something else.

Dot dot dot
.

Stryker

It was only a matter of time before I got into bed with Katie again, and it was only a matter of time before we got caught. We were in the thick of it when Katie’s door opened and I head the gasp of surprise.

As expected, Lottie gave both of us a talking to. For a tiny girl, she sure knew how to make you feel like you were even shorter. Zan didn’t seem either surprised or upset, which led me to believe he’d known all along. I was an idiot to think I could put it past him. He noticed everything. I apologized and tried not to be a dick about it, but I knew that I was going to be on Lottie’s shit list for a little while.

After Lottie dragged Zan down to his room for the night, Katie dragged me back to her room.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” she said as she tried to put her clothes back on with shaking hands. “Now she’s going to hate me and Zack is going to find out. Shit, shit, shit!” She tried to get her panties on, but tripped, and I caught her.

“Here.” I pushed her onto the bed and got them over her feet and pulled them up for her, following them with her jeans.

“You don’t have to baby me,” she said, snatching her bra from the bedpost and putting it on.

“I’m not trying to. I was just trying to help.” I backed off and dressed myself. It never bothered me when Katie talked like that to me. I was pretty sure I was the only person who saw this side of her. To everyone else she was sweetness and light. I got the sarcastic side. But sarcasm was often tinged with truth. More so than niceness.

“I shouldn’t have done this. I should have done what they said and taken some time alone instead of fucking you a bunch of times. I always
do
this and it never ends up working out.”

“It’s fine, Katie. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”

She looked up from adjusting the buttons on her pink shirt. I’d become immune to the amount of pink she surrounded herself with. Somehow.

“It doesn’t matter?”

“No. This was never anything special. Just two people having sex.” I zipped my pants and did my belt. Getting caught had totally killed my buzz, at least for a moment.

“Then what was all that about your music and singing me that song? What the hell was that?”

I shrugged. We hadn’t had any more late night conversations, and I regretted that one. I’d let her get too close. I should have just come over and fucked her like she wanted and then she wouldn’t be looking at me like this. All sweet and hurt. “A verbal distraction, like you said. You said you needed something to distract you. I provided it. You’re welcome.”

She stood up, hands on hips. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Why, what did you think this was?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Just go. I can deal with this by myself.”

“I told you that you don’t always get what you want, but you asked for this. You said sex with no strings. Don’t get mad at me for giving you what you asked for. If you want more, you have to tell me. I’m not a fucking mind reader.” I wasn’t sure if she even wanted more. I probably was just a distraction for her until someone better came along. That hurt more than I thought it would.

She opened and closed her mouth, and I could tell she wanted to scream at me and probably slap me in the face.

“Go ahead. Let me have it,” I said, holding my arms out so she could get a good shot.

She swallowed and I swore I saw some moisture in her eyes. She was hurt, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “Just get out of my room, Stryker.”

A few weeks ago, I would have left, but I couldn’t. I’d left her crying once and I was going to do it again. This damn girl had actually gotten to me.

“You don’t always get what you want. So no, I’m not going to leave. Not until we sort this out.”

“What do you want from me, Stryker?” She tried to push me aside, as if she was going to storm out of her own room.

“I don’t want anything from you. I’m not Zack.” Just saying his name made me want to hit something.

She inhaled sharply, as if I’d punched her. That shock was replaced with anger in a blink.

“Screw you.” Tears dripped down her cheeks and onto her chin. I reached up to wipe them away and she didn’t stop me.

“Hey. I just wanted you to know that I’m not him. And I will never be like him.”

She tried to pull away, but held her chin so she couldn’t.

“I. Am. Not. Zack. Got it?” Her eyes finally met mine. She sniffed and nodded.

“I know you’re not him. You’re…you’re nothing like him.” She gripped my wrists, but didn’t pull them away from her face. “Who are you Stryker Grant?”

I said the first thing that came to my mind. “I’m a guy who wants to toss you back in bed and finish what we started.”

So we did.

It was a little slower this time, a little sweeter. She let me kiss her stomach and she kissed mine. Afterward, I didn’t get up right away to put my clothes on and she didn’t either.

“Do you want me to stay?” She was on her stomach and I was on my back, one of her blankets covering us.

She folded her arms under her chin and turned her head toward me. “You don’t have to.”

“I’m not asking if I have to. I’m asking if you
want
me to.”

She smiled. “As long as you don’t mind sleeping in a pink bed.”

“I’m confident enough in my manhood to sleep in a pink bed, thank you very much. You are talking to a guy who used to paint his fingernails.” I held up my now-unpainted hands. They almost always had grease under them from working on one car project or another, and my fingers were all covered in callouses from playing various instruments.

“You did?”

“Yeah, in high school. Got pretty good at it.” I also had spiked hair and wore a lot of chains, but I didn’t tell her that. I wasn’t proud of that phase of my life. There was no way that Katie would have fucked that guy. Plus, that guy wouldn’t have been caught dead with a girl who surrounded herself with so much pink. We would have dined on opposite sides of the cafeteria and only crossed paths in homeroom. She would have called me a freak and I would have called her a mindless Barbie.

“I can always do my left hand, but I suck at my right.” She held put her hand up and I met her palm with mine.

“I could do them for you, if you want. If that wouldn’t be absolutely weird.”

She laughed. “It’s a little weird, but I’m okay with that.”

We spent the rest of the night talking while I painted first her fingernails and then her toenails with pink and used a toothpick to add little white dots.

“You’re good at that,” she said as I blew on her toes to dry them.

“Thank you.” I screwed the caps back on the polish bottles and put them on her desk as she inspected my work.

“I know you’re not Zack. That was never a question. Just so you know,” she said.

I crawled back under the blanket.

“Are you sure you want me to stay?” She traced the treble clef on my shoulder.

“Yes,” she said, getting under the blanket with me.

Chapter Four

Katie

Stryker never asked me for a definition of our relationship status and I didn’t feel the need for one. He was different. I didn’t want to put him in the relationship column with all the other guys I’d dated. Not that I was or was ever going to date Stryker. He wasn’t the boyfriend type. He was type-less. Not a friend, not a boyfriend. He was a guy. A guy I had sex with and who painted my toenails and let me bitch about my problems and took my sarcasm and thought I was funny.