Give Me You (2 page)

Y
ou have been accepted.

Four words. Four words that change the course of my life so drastically, they might as well say
You have cured cancer
.

I read them so many times the paper looks ancient instead of like it had arrived at my apartment merely a week ago. I fold the letter along the creased lines and tuck it into the back pocket of my jeans.

I’d gotten in. And not to just to the local community college, but a state university on the other side of the country. Which was exactly where I wanted to be.

“This is so fucking stupid, Cor. You’re just emotional because of the—”

“Go to hell, Eddie.” I lug my giant secondhand suitcase down the stairs, not bothering to look up at him for more than a second.

He leans further over the railing. “Don’t come crying to me when they kick your ass out. They don’t let bargain basement hookers into college, Ginger. It’s only a matter of time until they see you for who you really are.”

Sucking in a breath, I do the best I can to steel myself against the verbal assault. This isn’t new. It’s not the first time someone called me a slut. Hell, it’s not even the first time this week.

But I
hated
being called Ginger.

“Take care, Eddie. Take extra special care to fuck right off.” With that, I shoot him the bird and walk out of the dilapidated building I’ve called home for the past two years.

Two huge Neanderthals stand outside the door.

“He in there?” One of them asks me as I hand my suitcase to the other.

“He is,” I confirm.

Danny Webber turns and heads into the building I’d just exited. He’s the fry cook at the diner where I worked. Past tense because I quit this morning. He has more tattoos than Mel’s Diner has breakfast specials and he’s done plenty of time upstate for who knows what. He’d offered to scare Eddie Franco into leaving me the hell alone. So who was I to refuse? Good help was so hard to find these days.

Tony Coreitti watches Danny go then puts my suitcase in the trunk of the cab that’s waiting for me. I stand there, listening to the sounds of the city traffic and biting my thumbnail to the quick while trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this is actually happening.

I’m getting out. Leaving the girl I used to be behind.

And I am never, ever coming back if I can help it.

Tony hands the driver some cash before gripping me by the shoulders. “You sure about this, kid? You could always come work for me. I’d take good care of you. California is a long ways away, doll.”

I give him the most confident smile I can manage. “Honestly? I’m not sure about anything these days. But I need out of here, you know? I feel like…like I can’t
breathe
here.”

It was the truth. Trying to take a deep breath in the backside of the Bronx was hazardous to your health.

“Any of those surfer boys out in Cali give you any trouble, you know who to call, right?”

I grin and nod. Tony’s been like a father to me. Closest thing I ever had to one. Technically he was my mom’s handler—which, let’s face it, is just a nicer word for pimp—but beggars can’t be choosers.

“Just take care of my mom, okay? No more politicians, Tone. Those situations get too messy.”

“Your ma, she does what she wants, you know? I’m kidding myself acting like I call the shots.” He shakes his head and scrubbed a meaty hand over his face.

The way my mom was, Tony had become more like personal security than anything else. She hadn’t even come home last night to say goodbye to me. Not that I was surprised. I’d gone numb where my mom was concerned a long time ago.

“Tell me about it.” I gave him a quick hug and ducked into the cab. “See ya ‘round, old man.”

Part of me wanted to watch New York fade as I pulled away from the dingy street. Same urge struck as the plane took off from LaGuardia.

But I didn’t watch the landscape become a distant memory either time. I didn’t think about the past. Didn’t so much as glance back over my shoulder even once. I was done looking back. My mind was set on the future.

Because for the first time in nineteen years, it felt like I actually had one.

“D
on’t forget you have to come home on the fifteenth next month. The Hessinger’s have that father-son charity golf tournament you and your dad have RSVP’d for. And then of course we’ll see you at Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and then you’re signed up for Katie’s bachelor auction for the Orange County Crisis Center Valentine’s weekend.”

“Look, Dee. I got it, okay? The shit’s in my calendar and my phone will remind me. And if I ignore my reminders, I’m sure you’ll call to remind me.” Hoisting my bag over my shoulder, I give my mom’s social secretary a pointed glare. “They schedule in giving a fuck about me or attending any of my soccer games that you know of?”

Deidre Andrews tilts her pretty blonde head and lays a sympathetic smile on me. “Skylar, you know both of their schedules are hectic and—”

“So that’s a no then. Don’t worry, I figured as much.”

Only in the Martin household does a guy get his college send off from his mom’s assistant instead of an actual parent. But that was okay. Dee was hot and she gave amazing blowjobs. No complaints from this guy.

I give Dee a quick kiss on the cheek and walk out of the house I’d grown up in.
Grown up
being a relative term and all.

The town car driving me down to Southern California State University—SoCal to those of us who were local—is waiting in the driveway when I step outside.

It burned the hell out of my parents that I wasn’t attending the same private university as my sister but tough shit. I got a soccer scholarship to SoCal and that’s where I’m going.

Squinting in the sunlight, I slide on the gunmetal gray squared lenses of my aviator Ray Bans.

“What’s shaking, Dick?” I ask my dad’s driver as he took my bag. Richard Carlson has driven my dad for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I thought they were best friends. As I got older, I realized Richard worked for us and my dad didn’t see people beneath his pay grade as worthy of friendship.

In reality, my dad is the dick. Among other things. That myth about people with money being fucking assholes? Not entirely a myth unfortunately.

“Young Mr. Martin. Off to college. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Because you can’t believe how grown up I am now? What a bright, promising member of society I’ve become?” I ask while settling into the leather backseat.

“Because I suspected you’d get arrested for texting young ladies pictures of your genitals and end up on the sex offender registry before this day arrived.”

I chuckle as he closes the door. “It’s all about who you know, Dick. It’s all about who you know.”

“We’re getting introduced at freshmen orientation in a few hours so you fuckers need to get a move on,” is how fullback Ben Blackburn greets us as we’re unpacking our stuff in the dorm.

Not exactly Captain Manners, that one. How his burly Scottish ass ever gets laid is beyond me. But to each their own I suppose.

“And don’t forget, ladies, you have to clean the field house and spit-shine the locker rooms,” he reminds us on his way out.

I roll my eyes because I went to a private high school and am used to douche bags like Blackburn. But my roommate, a temperamental walk on named Landen O’Brien, looks ready to blow.

“Chill, man,” I mumble under my breath to O’Brien. “It’s just for a year, and then we’ll be the ones giving the orders.” I toss a pair of socks into my drawer and laugh. “And we won’t have that obnoxious accent of his.”

O’Brien nods but doesn’t say anything as we leave the dorm. A couple guys mention jogging to the field house since it’s not far, but it’s cloudy and I’m not in the mood for a workout. I follow O’Brien to his truck. We’re roommates, after all. Might as well get acquainted. He barely seems aware that I’m riding with him until I open the passenger door.

“O’Brien, you good to drive?”

His gaze snaps into focus. Finally. “Yeah. I am. It’s not like we’d all fit in your P.O.S. anyways.”

I assume he’s joking about the Audi being a P.O.S. though it is small and I have no intentions of ever driving it. My parents had it delivered to campus this morning when they realized I’d left it behind. One day they’ll get it. Maybe. Probably not. Whatever.

Two other freshmen, Austin and Michael, climb into the backseat of the extended cab while Dean and a few guys whose names I haven’t yet bothered to learn climb into the truck bed.

The faint scent of peaches surrounds me once the doors are closed. O’Brien hardly seems like a peachy air freshener kind of guy.

“Dude. It kind of smells like a girl in here. You hiding a chick in the floorboard?”

A shadow passes over his expression before he nods to the center console. I lift it and see a bottle of orange colored lotion with peaches on the label.

“Nice. Jerkin’ lotion in the truck. I hear ya, buddy.”

“Belonged to a girl I dated,” he answers shortly.

I can’t help but laugh. “Was she hot? Cause I’m getting a semi just from the smell.”

O’Brien lands a solid punch on my upper arm, and I hold my hands up. “My bad, dude. I didn’t realize.”

Clearly there are some unpleasant memories surrounding that particular chick, if how hard he socked me in the arm is any indication. Or they’re still together and I just made a rude comment about his girlfriend. But most dudes with girlfriends mention them or are glued to their phones. Something. I don’t recall seeing any pictures when we were unpacking. Of anyone, actually. Even I’ve got a picture of my sister and me from Christmas last year.

Landen O’Brien is going to be a tough nut to crack. But if there was anything life as a socialite fuckstick taught me, it was how to fraternize with my peers. I can handle this.

We’re roommates and teammates. It’s not like I really have a choice either way.