In Ruins (18 page)

“Shh,” she soothes.

“He asked me not to say anything to anyone. So I couldn't even tell you why I had to—”

“Tuck, it's okay. I get it.”

Of course she does. She knows what Cap's family is to me. How much of a sister Bits is to me, blood or not. And she's one of the only people who know about my dad, and how close to home the whole thing would've hit. I lift my head enough to meet her compassionate gaze. “Still, I'm sorry. You know that, right?”

She brushes off my apology—like she deems it unwarranted and so she won't accept it. My lips twist up into a small smile. My stubborn girl.

“Fucking Brian Falco.” She spits his name out with sincere distaste.

“Yeah. But, you know, it was deeper than that. He must have triggered her, but…you don't do something like that just over a guy.”

Carl doesn't ask me to explain, and I'm grateful. It's Bits's and Cap's business, and their asshole father and family issues have no place here, in this bed, with this beautiful girl. I sweep my lips tenderly from her ear, along her jaw, until they reach hers. We're both still naked and I'm still dying to be inside her.

Her mouth opens for me and our kiss deepens until we're both practically gasping for breath.

Her leg winds around my hip in invitation. I pull back and climb off the bed.

“Tuck…”

“Yeah, Princess?”

“I have something else I need to tell you.”

“What, baby?”

“I started the pill a month ago.”

I freeze, my eyes widening and my heart racing. She already knows I got tested at my last physical before lacrosse season began. We'd gotten into one of our many pointless arguments when she thought I was flirting with some girl at a party. It ended with her calling me a manwhore—little did she know I hadn't slept with anyone since first sleeping with her—and telling me she wouldn't touch me again until I got tested. I thought she was kidding, but a week later she asked if I had my results yet.

So I got tested. Because when the only girl you want to fuck declares conditions in order for you to do so, you fucking do them. I also knew I had never had sex without a condom, so I was confident I was good.

We've never discussed her going on the pill. So the fact that she did, and that she's telling me about it…

“What are you saying, Princess?” I don't want to presume anything, but my male brain can't help going there, and the thought of being with her completely bare has my dick straining so hard I think it might detach from my body just to jump inside hers. I wouldn't blame it if it did.

“I'm saying you don't need to get a condom.”

Fuck. Yes.

But that wasn't the only reason I got up. I smirk down at her. “Noted.” I head to the en suite bathroom.

“Where are you going?” she whines.

“Patience, Princess.” I grab the two candles the hotel has laid out by the tub, and Carl eyes me suspiciously as I lay them on the night tables by the bed and quickly light them. Then I grab the two violet flowers that came with yesterday's room service tray and yank the petals from the stems. My hands are rough and they come off torn, but the effect will hold, and I scatter them around Carl on the bedspread.

My girl giggles relentlessly. “What are you doing?”

I climb back over her, savoring the sound of her amusement. I want to hear that sound every day for the rest of my life. “Petals and candles for my Princess,” I murmur as my mouth meets the column of her throat.

Her giggles instantly morph into moans.

I kiss my way back down her body, silently telling my impatient dick it will have to wait just a little longer, and this time when I go down on her I don't do it to completion. I wait until she's panting and writhing and then I shift back over her and position myself.

She stares up at me, jade eyes practically screaming their love for me, and I soak it up like a starving man. I enter her slowly, as if it's her first time, and our usually passionate, almost combative lovemaking is decidedly slow and sweet. And as much as I love how we usually are together, I realize I love this, too. I love making love to her. Because as I slide in and out of her perfect body, my weight pinning her beneath me, her limbs snaked around me and holding me to her like vises, I can feel everything. Even as my thrusts grow in power and pace, even as her breaths become gasps and her lips moan my name, all I can think is that she is mine, and I am hers, and at only eighteen, I am done. This is what I want, and this is who I want it with, and I will never want anything else. And as she spasms around me, I fill her with myself for the first time, and I can't help but feel as if I'm staking some primal claim.

Mine.

We make love a second time and still make no move to leave the hotel bed. The early hour of my sexy wake-up call is finally starting to take its toll, and after Carl sucks in another adorable yawn—her third in as many minutes—I suggest we try and get some sleep, and pull her back flush against my chest.

But ten minutes later, she's still awake, eyes trained thoughtfully at the small crack in the curtains. “Princess?”

She doesn't move. “Hmm?”

“You thinking about Rory?” I guess. Last night was traumatic as fuck.

Carl's head shakes gently. “Beth, actually,” she murmurs.

I shift and turn Carl to face me. Now that I've told her that truth, I feel strangely unburdened, much like I did when I told her about my father's suicide. It's incredibly comforting to have someone you can trust implicitly. Someone you can give your most heart-wrenching secrets to—someone you
want
to confide in, if only for them to know every piece of you. And it's equally gratifying to know not only that she'd never betray my confidence, but that she gives me her deepest, darkest truths in turn. Because I know full well that Carl lets me see parts of herself she keeps hidden from everyone else. I think she always has.

“She's doing much better now,” I assure Carl, who nods vaguely.

“I know you said it wasn't really about Brian Falco, but I just can't help thinking if he'd been more careful with her heart…or better yet, if she'd never met him…” She trails off.

“You and me both,” I admit. “And, I mean, there's plenty of things to blame on that fucker. But what Beth did that night isn't one of them—not totally, anyway.”

“I guess.”

“A lot of girls get dumped, Princess. And they don't down a bottle of sleeping pills.” The anguish in my voice is obvious, because I can't help but think of my father, who chose a similar way to end his life. But with Carl here, one of the few people I can really talk to, at least I have some consolation. “She was dealing with other issues, for a long time, and when Falco came along, and gave her all that attention, it distracted her, you know? The other issues were still there, but Falco made her happy, and that masked the rest of it.” I shrug. “When he took that away, and added to it a broken heart…it was too much.”

Carl wears her empathy in the lines of her frown. She cares. Deeply. And I love her even more for it. It makes me want to keep talking, to tell her everything she still doesn't know.

“It's like, with my dad. He always had issues. He would get in these low moods for no reason. But he managed them, you know? He was successful right out of college, and money, it doesn't buy happiness, obviously, but it sure as hell makes shit easier.”

Carl drops her gaze, and I think she's ashamed. But I didn't mean to guilt her for being born into a wealthy family.

I nudge her chin. “Hey.”

She looks at me.

“You think I don't know you wish your mom cared about more than designer bullshit and fancy trips? That you'd burn that big-ass house you live in down to the fucking ground if it meant you'd have your dad home with you more?”

Carl chews her lip, saying nothing. But I don't need words. She's given me enough already. She's complained to me about her mother's judgmental comments and snide critiques. She's confided in me about her dad—not much, but enough that I know her heart. That she resents his constantly being away on business, and I silently vow never to be that kind of man. That I will always put my family first—put Carl first.

“When my dad's business was doing well, he was able to cover up his problems by spending—you know, buying my mom jewelry, and me ridiculous toys, floor seats for the Knicks—shit like that. I think it made him feel more whole. Like he had an idea of what a provider was, and as long as he filled that role, he could manage his lows.” I suck in a deep breath, holding Carl's eyes, making sure she's still with me.

“Then the economy tanked, and just like that it was all over. I mean, he was a business consultant, and half his clients were bankrupt within weeks, so his business went to shit. I was only like eleven, but I remember everything. It was like living in a different house. Suddenly all he could talk about was ‘making payroll,' and he was in a constant state of panic, and you could feel it, you know? Like we were all on edge.

“When he finally had to close down, I thought things would calm…” I trail off, remembering the muffled shouts behind my parents' closed bedroom door, my mom's hysterical sobbing. I remember when I finally understood what had happened. My anger. My contempt for someone I didn't even know, but hated with every bone in my eleven-year-old body. I feel a shadow of it now and it tenses my back and clenches my jaw.

Carl's fingers gently brush over my stubble, scratching softly, and my rage eases marginally.

My voice is quieter, strained when I tell her, “I figured he would just start something new. Or maybe get a job. That we would get by on our savings in the meantime, and whatever. I didn't really know any details about our finances, but I knew I had a college fund, and I remember thinking I would tell them to take it. That I would get a sports scholarship for lacrosse or football, that they didn't need to worry.”

“Tuck,” Carl whispers, and I can feel her hurting for me, and that helps even more.

“But, it turned out, I was wrong. I didn't have a college fund. They didn't have any savings. Not anymore.”

Carl's thin brows pinch together, but she stares without blinking.

“My dad had invested it. With some hotshot broker. Supposedly. But when the market got fucked, the guy couldn't pay back the money, and it turned out he'd never invested it at all. Or he invested some of it, but lost it, and then just lied on statements or some shit. I don't know exactly. But he did it to a lot of people.”

Carl's eyes shine with tears. She must see where this is going—get that this piece of garbage who stole my family's last dollar was my father's trigger. His Brian Falco. Except no one was there to find him before it was too late. My mother and I couldn't force the pills from his stomach and get him to a hospital in time to save his life. My father is dead. And even though I know that technically justice was served, the bastard was never punished for
that
.

I slide my palm up the side of Carl's neck, trying to return the favor and relieve the strain my story is causing. But she's tense and anxious, and I wonder if I should stop talking.

But I know she's already guessed where this is going, so I might as well just say it. “My father couldn't handle living like that. Begging extended family for money to pay the gas bill every month. Debt collection letters, threats to foreclose on our house. Yeah, he also had issues before, like I said. But the stress of it all…Whatever, if it wasn't for Stanley, my dad would probably be alive. That piece of shit killed him.”

I don't hide my hostility. I don't want to hide from Carl anymore, ever. “And you know, he never paid for that. Sure, he's in prison, and they recovered some of the stolen money, but the little we actually got back was barely enough to pay some past due bills, and even that came too late. My dad was already gone,” I sneer. “That scumbag deserves far worse than fucking prison. He deserves to suffer like my dad did. His
family
deserves to suffer like we did. Like we
do
.”

Carl winces as though my words cut her, and I pause to take a settling breath. It's hard not to get heated when talking about the man who ruined my family. I wonder if he even realizes the fallout he caused—the devastation. My emotions return to that time, watching my mom suffer the loss of her husband, but instead of having time to grieve, she had to worry about mounting bills and funeral expenses.

“And to top it all off, we couldn't even get him a normal fucking headstone because of that bastard,” I tell Carl. “But my dad had always loved the water—lakes, ponds, whatever—and Beth Moses Cemetery has this small pond, but the plots near it were way more expensive. It destroyed my mom—having to choose between a nice headstone and the burial plot near the water because we couldn't afford both. My mom agonized over it for days, but…I knew he'd have wanted to be there. Near the water.”

“Water is peaceful,” Carl says shakily after a beat, swallowing around the emotion lodged in her throat.

“Yeah. Still, I hate the stone we ended up with. The smallest size, the cheapest material. Just a slab of rock, really. I second-guess it every time I go visit his grave. But then I look out at the water…” I trail off.

Talking about my father has made me wonder again about Carl's, and I want to give her the opportunity to return my confidence—to reveal one of those cards she plays so close to her chest. I've begun to suspect there's more going on with her dad than just working constantly, and it's not that I'm nosy-—though I do want to know what his fucking deal is—but more than that, I want Carl to feel like she can open up to me. I know she must have some feelings on the subject, but she never entertains anything other than the vaguest sense of resentment.