In Ruins (10 page)

Tucker moves with raw perfection, his arms curling around me, his hands taking full advantage, touching and molding. He withholds the dirty whispers I've come to expect from him, replacing them with soft growls and grunts into my hair and throat.

His hips are rough and his rhythm is almost punishing, but this is one punishment I revel in. And then his fingers find the place he knows will seal my fate, and I explode around him, shamelessly moaning his name.

He freezes at the sound, as if it vexes him to hear it, but I'm only half aware, my ears rushing with the sound of my blood pumping and my vision blurred by stars. His arms band around my waist and my feet leave the floor, and then I'm facedown on the bed and Tucker is behind me, slamming back inside.

His arm slides under my belly, lifting my hips slightly from the bed, and he takes full advantage of the angle, pounding me into the mattress. His hand slips down, down, and I suck in a gasp. And then I'm coming again, so hard my eyes water and I muffle my cries in the comforter beneath me.

“Fuck, fuck,
fuck
!” Tucker chants until he thunders his release, burying his face in my hair.

He collapses on top of me, but only for a moment before he hastily rolls onto his back as if he can't get away from me fast enough—as if I am some kind of trap he refuses to fall victim to.

We both gasp for breath, and I keep my face turned into the mattress. I don't want to look at him—to see his look of regret, or contempt, or anything else I know he still feels for me despite what we just did. My heart couldn't bear it right now. I may be strong, but even I have my limits.

So instead, I fix my underwear and pull my clothing back in place, take a moment to finger-comb my hair, and swipe under my eyes and around my lips with the pad of my thumb to sort out any smeared makeup. And, without so much as a glance back, I climb off his bed, and walk out the door.

Last Year

“I don't know, Teen. I'm not really feeling well,” I murmur. I don't have to fake the exhaustion in my voice, only in reality it's more emotional than physical. We just got back from visiting my father, and I'm really not up to anything at all.

“Carl, you never get sick. What's wrong?” Tina's concern crushes me with guilt, but there's no way I'm up for Andrew's tonight.

“I feel like I'm coming down with something,” I lie. “I'm just gonna stay in and go to bed.”
Not a lie.

“You sure you don't want me to come over? Are you alone?”

Yes
, and
yes
.

“I'm sure. Have fun tonight,” I murmur, and hang up.

Billy's staying over at a friend's house. He seemed fine when we got home. He was so young when my father voluntarily surrendered for his sentence that I'm not sure he remembers a life before this one. A time when we were a normal family. When our relationship with our father consisted of more than a weekly phone call and a visit every few months at most.

The visits have grown less frequent the more my mother travels, since we can't go without her, and the truth is, ever since I found out what he did to our family, I've avoided the phone calls as much as possible, too.

I used to think my mother callous, that choosing vacations and “girls' trips” with her friends over visiting her husband more often, especially on an actual holiday, was purely selfish. But for the past few years, I've wondered if it's actually completely justified. After all, my father made his choice.

I feel withered and worn, like my faded, chipped nail polish. So I sit on the floor of my bedroom and paint my nails a midnight blue that reflects my mood—one of several mindless tasks I always turn to on days like this.

It had always been difficult visiting my father—worse even than living without him. But almost exactly five years ago I learned the details of his plea agreement and visits became almost unbearable. That year, our holiday visit came in mid-January—also due to one of my mother's trips. Before then, even though I understood he was guilty of defrauding his clients, I was able to separate the man from the crime—to forgive him. I knew what he did was wrong, but it didn't feel personal—like he did it to
me
, even if in committing the crime he ended up condemning me to life without a father. But I knew he regretted it—that if he could go back and make better choices, he would. That he would do anything in his power to be with us again, to be my daddy again.

Sometimes they let us visit outside, but that day was cold, and we sat across a table in a crowded visiting room, my mother prattling on about needing more access to finances and accounts—a common complaint from her—while Billy and I tried not to look as bored as we felt. Eventually my mother got whatever information she needed, and I got to spend a couple of hours telling my dad about school, about Billy's basketball season, and whatever other mundane things were going on in my twelve-year-old little life, and my father had the grace to act deeply interested. Or perhaps he really was interested. After all, it couldn't have been more boring than his current life.

It was when the correctional officer told him his time was up that I got the idea. “Stanley,” the guard called, “work duty in fifteen.”

I always knew that my father had gone by Will Stanley instead of Will Stanger. He thought it sounded better, and eventually he changed it legally “for business reasons” I can make guesses about now. He still went by Stanger in his personal life—on school lists and things like that. It's how we avoided attention when he was arrested. Will Stanley was indicted, the news reported, and no mention was ever made of his family. I knew this already of course, but for some reason, that day, hearing the guard call him
Stanley
gave me the novel idea to Google him.

So after a long, exhausting day, I sat down at my laptop and typed “William Stanley” into the search box.

It was a mistake.

I never expected to actually learn anything new. I thought I already knew everything worth knowing. I suppose I was just curious about what the media had said about him, and mostly, it was what I'd expected.

The last one made no sense, so I immediately clicked the link.

At first I didn't believe what it said. So I typed “William Stanley Plea Deal” into the browser, and up popped more articles. And they all said the same thing.

Apparently the FBI was only ever able to recover some of the stolen money, and the federal prosecutor wanted my father to tell them where the rest was. Some of the assets, like our house and certain bank accounts, were in my mother's name, and they couldn't tie them to my father's dealings, so they couldn't seize them. But that wasn't enough to account for the missing funds.

It was leverage. And they expected my father to use it.

The offer was for six years if he gave back the money.

Six years.

Six. Fucking. Years.

He could have gotten out when I was fifteen. He would have already been home for three years. I would have had a father.

But he didn't take that deal.

He kept the money. Where—I have no idea. They never located it. No one but my father knows where it is. Not even his old business partner, Art, who he started Stanley Stevens Investments with when they were still in college.

God knows my mother doesn't know, or I wouldn't have to listen to her complain about it at every freaking visit. But I've overheard enough to know it's in a trust, somewhere overseas, and that there's some foreign lawyer who makes transfers to another offshore account in my mother's name “as needed.” Or as my father deems is needed. Because it's more than obvious my mom wants more control, and as the years push on, I suspect she's starting to wear him down.

But the fact remains: My father refused to return that money in exchange for less time.

Instead, my father took another deal. A guilty plea to avoid a trial and the potential for twenty plus years, and he was sentenced to fifteen. He could potentially get out after ten, but unless he gives up the missing funds, it isn't likely. It's hard to claim good behavior when you continue to refuse to pay back your victims.

So instead of getting my dad back at fourteen, I will be twenty-four when he gets out. Instead of a teenager just starting high school, I will be a college graduate. Hell, I might finish grad school by the time my father is released. I could be married, though I doubt it. But whatever I do by twenty-four, the reality is, he willingly sacrificed being a part of my childhood…for money.

He isn't the father I knew. It turns out that man never existed at all.

I never confronted him about it, and I suppose he's attributed my standoffishness since then to teenage hormones. But despite putting on a good show, I know he doesn't really care. If he cared, he'd be here.

By the time my nails dry I just want to go to bed, but I know there's no hope for sleep now. I put on pajama shorts and a camisole anyway, and go to the kitchen to make myself some hot cocoa.

I'm so startled by the doorbell that I jump, sloshing some of the chocolatey liquid onto my shirt.

I can only guess it's Tina coming to check on me after all, and I'm fresh faced and practically indecent when I swing open our giant mahogany front door to find Tucker standing on my doorstep. His gaze rakes me from head to toe, a surprised and very appreciative rogue grin stretching from dimple to dimple, and a blush rises to every very exposed surface of my skin. I have to silently remind myself that he's seen me naked, but that memory only makes me flush even more.

“Hi…?” My brows raise to ask what he's doing here.

Tucker holds up a white paper bag. “Soup.”

Huh?
I blink at him.

“Tina said you were sick.”

Oh. “So you showed up here with soup?”

Tucker shrugs sheepishly, and my heart does that melting thing it's been doing for him lately. “That's what friends do, right?” he says uncertainly. “Tina said your parents were both out of town. Thought you could use some company.”

I open the door wider and gesture for him to come in, suddenly at a loss for words. I don't like lying about my father, but Tuck still thinks he's just a neglectful workaholic, and I can't bring myself to tell him—or anyone—the truth.

As he steps through the front door, Tucker's gaze never strays from me, either unimpressed by the opulence of my ridiculously sprawling home, or immune to it after all these years.

“I was just having hot chocolate,” I tell him. “Want some?”

“Tea would probably be better if you're not feeling well,” he murmurs absentmindedly.

“I'm just feeling a little tired, Tuck. I'm not dying of consumption.”

Tucker chuckles and I feel my mood lighten marginally. It's instant, and a far more effective cure than any tea. “Sure, I'll have some.”

I fill a second mug and hand it to him and we sit on the couch in the adjacent den, where I have the fireplace softly roaring with the click of a remote. He sits next to me, but not too close. I don't know what our boundaries are now. We've hung out plenty in recent weeks, though rarely alone, and on those rare times we were alone, we hooked up. But we haven't had sex since Andrew's laundry room.

Attraction buzzes between us, but it's dulled somewhat by my dejected mood. Tuck watches me as if he's trying to solve some kind of riddle, and I find myself averting my gaze.

“So if you're tired, why aren't you in bed?” he asks.

“Some jackass rang my doorbell with a soup delivery,” I remind him with a smirk.

His lips quirk into a smile. “You were making hot chocolate, Princess. Not sleeping.”

God
, he always has to call me on my bullshit. I shrug. “Couldn't sleep.”

Still, he stares at me as if trying to figure me out.

“Why aren't you at Andy's?” I ask.

Tucker shrugs. “Damsel in distress needed a soup delivery.”

A laugh bubbles its way out of my mouth and I shake my head.

“There it is,” he murmurs, as if my laugh is all he's after tonight, and I find myself both relieved and disappointed.

“Well, thanks, Prince Charming,” I tease. “You don't have to stay. Or if you want to we could watch a movie,” I offer. I want him to stay. But I don't want him to know how much I want him to stay. That would ruin our game.

Tucker sets his mug on the coffee table and leans back on the couch. “What are we watching?”

I start flipping through channels, enjoying his unusually quiet company. I think he suspects I'm more than just tired, but he doesn't pry. He just sits with me, sipping his cocoa.

I land on FX, which is running a
Sons of Anarchy
marathon. “You good with this?” I ask.

“Hell yes,” Tucker replies. His arm stretches along the back of the couch and I find myself curling into him. If we'd never been intimate, it wouldn't mean anything. But I don't know what it is now. I don't know what
we
are now. Friends with benefits, sure, but my heart and my brain don't always see eye to eye when it comes to Tucker.

“You're the one girl I can count on to not turn on some chick flick.” He says it with warmth, and I know he means it as a compliment, but all I hear is that I'm one girl of many he's been
Netflix and chilling
with.

I have never been this girl. I have never had a reason to suffer the sharp spikes of jealousy, but here they are all the same. It's unnerving. It makes me feel vulnerable. It's not something I'm used to, and I scoot an inch away from him, needing to get back some of my independence. Because if there's one thing I know about men, it's not to let your heart rely on them. It'll only hurt more when they choose someone else, or something else.

“Your parents coming back for the holidays?” Tucker asks nonchalantly. He's watching the TV, but he looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

Part of me wants to tell him the truth. That my father is a criminal whose greed destroyed lives. That he chose his money over his family—over
me
—and my mother has taken his prison sentence as an excuse to act as if she doesn't have a family at all. That she spends so many nights with her divorced, wino, pill-head girlfriends in Manhattan—the ones who think it's not a drinking problem if it comes in the form of three-hundred-dollar bottles of champagne, and that it's not doing drugs if they were prescribed by a doctor. That those same snobby bitches are the ones she chooses to travel with, never caring that she's missing my volleyball games or Billy's entire childhood, or in this case, the holidays. Not that it stops her from texting critiques about my outfits or hair any time I post a photo on Instagram.

But even if I could get past the humiliation of admitting what my father did and where he is, I wouldn't even know how to begin to tell Tucker I've been lying to him—and everyone else for that matter—for basically our entire lives. Why would he ever trust me again?

And the truth is I'm ashamed. I guess deep down, the fool that I am, I still hold an inkling of hope that Tucker could someday see me as something more than just a fuck-buddy, and I don't want to give him a reason to think I'm not good enough. That I'm not worth it. Because why would Tucker give up his playboy ways for a girl whose own father loves her less than he loves fucking money? Why would
any
guy love that girl, when the man who's supposed to love her the most clearly had no problem giving her up? What does that say about me? But it is Tucker, so while I keep my secrets, I do give him a hint of truth in my bitter tone. “Nope. They like their travel this time of year…
Every
time of year,” I add spitefully.