Rebound (Pro-U Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter 22

Natasha

The sunlight filled up the room and pulled me from a deep sleep. I started to stretch, but realized someone was tucked against the back of me. And I was naked. A scream lodged in my throat, but I forced myself to keep it in. I'd gotten drunk last night. Really, really drunk. Right?

I let out quick puffs of air from my nose as my lungs burned. Basketball. There were trophies and banners and all sorts of basketball stuff all over the walls in front of me.

Dear God, please let it be Micah and not someone else.

Slowly I turned my head until I could see him from my peripherals. Micah. Relief and desire filled me at the same time. Had we slept together? It would certainly seem that way, and yet I wasn't sore in the places I expected to be sore.

I moved out of his hold and stood on shaky legs as he grunted and rolled onto his back. The view was beyond magnificent, but my old fears resurrected, stealing anything good from the moment away from me.

A condom. He had to have used a condom.

He wasn't an idiot like all the other guys in the house. I stumbled around as quietly as I could and got dressed before checking the bedside table for the wrapper; the trash, the floor - nothing. Terror raced through me and I did the only thing I could think to do. I ran.

After closing his door, I tiptoed down the stairway and walked over twenty to thirty people who were spilled out on the living room floor, most of them naked and cuddled up to someone else.

"Gross," I mumbled and reached the front door, only to stop at the sound of Jacob's voice.

"You running out?"

"I need to get back to my dorm. I'm supposed to meet up with my dad today." I glanced over my shoulder, not too sure what to make of the look on his face. It was a mixture of concern and humor.

"All right. You need a ride?"

"No. I drove last night behind Aubrey and Em. Thanks though." I slipped out onto the porch and closed the door, not too sure where my keys were. Luckily enough for me, they were sitting under the floor mat on the driver’s side.

I drove back to town with my mind racing through the small bits and pieces of the night before as my knuckles turned white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I remembered getting the drink, talking to the basketball guys, a fight behind me and... that was it.

"How the hell did I end up naked with Micah? Why would he let that happen?" I pulled up to my dorm and sat in my car for a few minutes as realization rolled over me. He was a guy. Why
wouldn’t he
let that happen? Sex was sex. I didn't mean anything to him. If I did, he would have kept my fucking clothes on.

Anger burned my insides as I turned the car around and drove to the nearest drug store. I couldn't remember if we had sex or not, but I wasn't taking any chances. I wasn't going to repeat the same trauma I'd experienced as a sixteen-year-old kid. I'd barely survived it the first time. There was no damn way I'd make it through that hell again.

I got out and jogged toward the door as a frantic feeling drove me to jog faster. I had to look like an idiot with tears in my eyes and my hair a mess, but nothing mattered other than making sure I didn't have a baby inside of me. Could I even tell on the morning after? I doubted it, but I didn't care. Seven days. Somewhere I remember seeing it could take seven days to tell.

"Then I'll get seven tests." I stopped in front of the counter and pointed to the tests as the young guy working smiled at me.

"What can I-"

"Seven. I need seven of these pregnancy tests." I pressed my fingers to my mouth as my lips trembled.

"Hey. You okay?" He reached for me, but I jerked back.

"Just ring up the tests, okay?" I barked at him, not giving a shit how it sounded or how he felt. I needed to know. Now. I needed to be okay now.

"Yeah, sure. No problem." He rang them up and I paid, leaving my change there as I snatched the bag and ran back to my car. By the time I got to my dorm room, I was hyperventilating and crying at the same time. I could only hope that no one would hear me through the paper thin walls and call the cops.

I took the first test and paced the living room as I broke down even further. Nothing was going right in my life. I'd started to think that things could work between me and Micah and he strips me naked and fucks me the first time he gets a chance? Without a condom?

"What were you thinking?" I screamed at the room around me and paused as someone knocked at the door. "Go away."

The lock turned, and I rushed toward the door, not sure what to think. I put my shoulder against it, slamming it shut as someone yelped in pain.

"Tasha. It's me, Emily."

"Oh." I moved back and opened the door. "I'm sorry."

"Oh man, what the fuck is going on?" She barreled into the room, closed the door and pulled me into a tight hug.

I cried until I couldn't find another tear inside of me. Bile rose in my throat and I pulled from her, running to the restroom and dropping to my knees to throw up everything I'd eaten the day before. She rubbed my back softly and left me only to return with a glass of cold water.

"Thank you," I mumbled and sat down on the toilet seat as sweat collected at the edge of my brow.

"What's this, Tasha? Did something happen that you haven't told me about?" She picked up the pregnancy test.

I glanced down at my hands as my lip trembled again. "What does it say?"

"It's negative."

Pressing my hands to my face, I let out a long cry and tried to pull myself together. It didn't mean shit. If they were still negative in seven days, I was in the clear.

"What's going on?" She knelt in front of me and pulled my hands down, squeezing them softly. "Look at me. Did something happen?"

"I don't know." I shrugged and forced myself to look up at her. "I think my drink was spiked last night. I remember being at the party with you guys and Micah having to bust up a fight. The next thing I remember was waking up this morning naked in his bed with him."

"With Micah?" She jerked back like someone had slapped her.

I nodded. "I just can't imagine him taking advantage of me, but why were we naked? Why weren't we just snuggled up in our clothes? I can't be pregnant."

"Shhh... let's figure out what's going on. I'll call Jacob." She touched the side of my face and sat there for a few more minutes. "Look at me. You have to calm down. I know Micah really well and if he's one thing-"

"It's a good guy. Right." I sighed and pulled back from her. "Why were we naked?"

"I don't know, but I'll figure it out. Just go lay down on the bed. It's going to be okay. You're not pregnant. You can't be. There's no way Micah would have had sex with you."

"I keep telling myself that, but-" I threw my hands in the air and walked past her to the bedroom.

She closed the door to the bathroom as I laid down on the bed and cried through the hurt and anger of knowing that he could quite possibly not be the guy I thought he was at all. Adam sure as fuck wasn't.

I wanted to make love with Micah. I wanted to be his girl, but not if he'd taken advantage of me being blitzed the night before. He wasn't at all the man I thought him to be. How many other girls had he taken advantage of? Maybe the guys just thought he was a great guy because he kept the drunk women in his room for
protection
. Anger burned through me again in sickening waves.

Did I really believe that? No. I couldn't even force myself to turn him into a monster.

"Hey." Emily walked out of the bathroom and sat down on the bed beside me. "Jacob has no clue why Micah was naked last night, but he said he saw him in the hallway and they talked for a minute. Jacob congratulated him for scoring with you and Micah got upset and said he would never take advantage of you."

"That's great, but people lie all the fucking time, Em." I sat up, pissed that she would assume the best about the guy just because he treated her like a little sister.

"How long has it been since you've had sex? Honestly?"

"Since I was sixteen," I barked, not sure where she was going with her probing.

"And how old are you now?"

"You know I'm twenty-one. What's your point?"

"Are you sore? Down there?" Her eyes shifted down as she pursed her lips.

"No." I moved to the edge of the bed and got up. "But why were we-"

"Maybe you guys made out, Tasha. When I get drunk, I get nuts horny. I'm not saying you did anything, but if you like him, which you do, maybe you're the one that pulled your clothes off. If you're not sore, then I highly doubt he took advantage of you."

"Maybe you're right." Flashes of the night before appeared behind my eyes, me sucking him as if he were the last thing on the planet I might get to taste. "Shit. I need to see him. He's going to wake up alone and think I ran out."

"No. Let him come to you. You need to know he's really the guy we all say he is. If that's all true, then you'll hear from him, and soon." She moved toward me and pulled me into another tight hug. "Whatever’s going on, he's the only one that really knows what happened. You just have to decide if you trust him enough to believe him when he tells you the story."

I nodded and walked her to the door. "Thanks. I'll call you later."

"You want me to hang out today?"

"No. I'm going to head up to the gym. I need to get some of this out of me before my head explodes." I brushed the last few tears off my cheeks and took a deep breath. "I just have a lot of demons in my past. They seem to be trying to show up again, and I'm not sure how to handle it."

She reached out and squeezed my hand. "When I had to go deal with my mom and Cally, did I go by myself to face that nightmare?"

"No," I whispered and glanced down.

"Right. I called you and you came and got me. You took me out there and helped me face it." She reached up and touched the side of my face. "Did you judge me when you saw this crazy white-trash shit my family was up to?"

"No. I would never-"

"I wouldn't either. Neither would Micah or Aubrey. We're here for you and we love you, okay? Open up and let us in. We just might be able to work together to heal it. I know you did that for me."

"Okay," I whispered and moved back as she walked out into the hall. She was beyond right, but I didn't know where to start.

Moving back into the living room, I forced myself to change into a pair of basketball shorts, a t-shirt and get my shoes on. I wasn't going to figure out anything sitting in the dark in my dorm room. I'd have to go where I always did when things got rough.

To the basketball court. Home.

Chapter 23

Micah

I woke up and tried to be careful as I rolled back toward the spot on the bed I knew I would find her. Seeing that she was gone left my heart aching, but maybe I was over-thinking it. Maybe she was in the bathroom or downstairs, hanging out with the guys.

After checking the clock and realizing that it was only eight, I realized what she'd done. She had run. Like everyone in my life did.

"Whatever," I grumbled and sat up. What did it matter? She was going to realize too quickly that I wasn't like the other guys on campus. I wasn't interested in dominating her in the bedroom and emotionally ruling her out in public. Alpha assholes were a dime a dozen, but I wasn't one of them. Sucked to be me.

I pulled a t-shirt over my head and walked to the closet to pull on a pair of shorts. Fuck underwear. It was Saturday and I wouldn't be getting turned on any time soon. I was good.

The sound of the guys laughing downstairs didn't help my mood much, though I wished it would have. Jacob turned from the coffee pot as I stumbled into the kitchen and saluted me.

"To the only man in history good enough not to take advantage of a fine woman. We salute you, Mr. I'm a bad ass, I mean good ass, I mean-"

"Fuck you," I grumbled and walked to the fridge. "A lot of good it did me. I woke up alone with a hard-on and no chance of relief anytime soon. Take a note from my book. Be a dick. It works better."

"Hey, hey, hey." Jacob moved up beside me as I lifted the milk carton and drank deeply from it. "What have you done with my best friend? I want him back. He balances me out. Without him... we're in a world of hurt."

"Whatever, man." I burped and put the top back on the milk jug. "Where's Dillon?"

"Tasha had to go see her dad, dude. That's why she snuck out early."

"Right, that was yesterday, Jacob. She lied, if you even talked to her." I walked into the living room, kicking people and enjoying the sound of their groans. I grabbed the step ladder from the closet in the living room and climbed up on it, unscrewing the recessed light and pulling the camera piece out of it. "Get Dillon, grab me a coffee and meet me in my room in five minutes. I'm in need of fucking someone's life up. I might as well make it this asshole." I lifted the chip and smirked. "Now would be good."

"Awww, damn," Jacob mumbled and turned to walk back toward the kitchen. "My boy’s done flipped his shit over a woman."

"Join the crowd," someone groaned from the floor as I walked back through. I made sure to kick them all again just for fun.

By the time I had all the chips in my hand and was headed back up the stairs, my anger had morphed into sadness. Why would she leave and not say anything? How would that look good? Did she not give a shit how that would make me feel? I'd protected her, stopped the sex at the point it seemed right to stop it and she hauls ass without a word?

"Fucking awesome." I walked into the room and dropped the chips on the table next to my computer where Dillon sat. I grabbed the coffee from Jacob and walked toward the window. "You know whoever this guy is, he's out. Period."

"Yeah, I'll be beating his ass to the road. We can burn his shit on the lawn tonight. Deal?" Jacob spoke up.

I glanced over my shoulder. "Yep. And you're going to let Talon Jackson take his place. He's a good kid and fits here."

"He's a fucking freshman, and if you haven't checked lately, he might look like a good guy, but he's fucking Brody Jackson's brother. He's a cock. He's just hiding it really well." Jacob leaned back in his chair. "The bastard can pledge, but he's not getting in."

"I'm with Micah on this one." Dillon popped the chip into the device we'd picked up to read the images. "He's nothing like Brody from what I can tell."

"You're new!" Jacob snorted and popped Dillon in the back.

"Yeah, well I'm not, and I'm sick of having assholes who don't clean up after themselves and treat women like shit fill up this place. If I'm going to be president next year, we're going to start changing things. Period." I turned back toward the window, not really caring if he agreed. He was my closest friend, but he was half the problem. In the past he'd been a whore and a half, setting everyone up to treat women like sperm depositories as if that was at all okay. Now that he had Emily, he was changing, but he was blind to the bullshit that was still happening at the house.

"Dude, what's up your ass this morning?" He got up and moved over toward me.

I whipped around. "I'm tired of being the only responsible one in the fucking house."

"I'm responsible." Dillon lifted his hand and gave us a sheepish grin as we turned our anger toward him. "Not now? Yeah, okay. I'll check out the videos."

"She didn't walk out on you, Micah."

"You don't know shit." I pushed at his chest and set my coffee down.

"I know this much... she's been through some shit in her life. She's scared and running from everything. If she won't let Emily in, she's not going to let you in either."

"Excellent. That makes me feel
so
much better. Thank you kindly. Asshole." I moved around him, pushing him hard with my shoulder.

"Dude, stop being a cock and go after her. That's what the good guys do. Fuck, it's what us lousy guys do when we're in love. We go after her. I'll take care of this shit."

"I want this fucker out of the house, Jacob. I'm not kidding around anymore. It's driving everyone insane, you especially. We're on our last leg. Fix it." I barked my response in his face and walked to the door as Dillon let out a sharp laugh.

"You were right, dude. Look at this shit."

I couldn't help but turn and move back toward the screen. I'd go after Tasha in a few minutes, but I needed to see the evidence for myself that it was Darren. The ugly bastard hovered over the punch bowl in one video, pouring something that looked like powder into the mix.

"I knew it. I hate this guy," I growled and started for the door as Jacob reached out and grabbed my arm.

"My house. My problem." He moved past me as I turned to watch a few more clips of Darren messing with the house and drugging girls right under our noses. The more I watched, the sicker I got. Did Natasha run because of her own fear, or because she thought that I was capable of being a monster like the asshole on the screen? Surely not. There was no way she could believe that of me. I'd been nothing but good to her.

"Wow. This guy totally had you guys fooled. I bet he's been doing it-"

"For the last year." I turned and grabbed a baseball cap from my nightstand. "I'm going to the gym to shoot some hoops. I'll check in later. Don't let up on Jacob about Talon. The guy deserves a chance. Just because his older brother is a cock doesn't mean he is."

"Agreed. See you later, boss." Dillon lifted his hand and waved as I walked through the door and down the stairs.

The sound of Darren screaming as Jacob pummeled him was music to my ears. The rest of the guys wouldn't let anything totally fucked up happen. They didn't need me, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't need them either. I needed her. I could tell myself that I was going to shoot hoops to feel better, but the truth of the matter was that I wanted to find her there so I could figure things out.

What was she thinking? How could I correct her thinking if it was wrong? I needed her to trust me, to give me a try... fuck, to love me.

I got in the truck and pulled out of the driveway, rolling down the windows and cranking up the tunes. I rolled my wrist in slow movements as I made my way up to the school and parked in front of the gym. I was the only truck out front, but it was Saturday. The hope was that she'd walked over there like she often did.

My wrist popped, and warmth rushed down my arm.

"Shit." I pulled it close to me and moved my fingers, finding everything okay. I was hesitant to roll it again, but nothing hurt. I forced myself to stop being a pussy and figure out if the pop was good or bad. I rolled it in a small circle and worked my way out, realizing that it hadn't felt that good in forever. I'd have to talk to the doctor on staff for basketball on Monday, but it seemed like whatever happened was a good thing.

I got out of the truck and walked languidly toward the court, rolling my wrist and listening for the sound of a lone basketball. I turned the corner before I heard it. Stopping at the edge of the court, I put my hands on my hips and smiled.

"You always leave your men naked and tied up in bed when you run out in the morning?" I walked toward her as she bounced the ball and watched me with a concerned look on her face.

"You were tied up? I didn't do that part."

I swatted the ball from her and wrapped my arms tightly around her before leaning down and kissing her with everything I had in me. I'd planned on a conversation, maybe a fight or something most couples would do, but seeing her did me in. I didn't want anything most couples had. I wanted what we could have.

She remained stiff against me for a few seconds before slowly melting. Her fingers dug into my back as she opened up and rolled her tongue past mine. I took my time making love to her mouth and breathing her in. She broke the kiss and moved back, her eyes dilated as we panted in tandem.

"I'm sorry I left this morning. I thought..." She glanced away from me and pressed her hands to her face.

"Never." I moved toward her and pulled her against me again. "I would never do anything you didn't explicitly beg me to do, and then I still wouldn't if you were drunk. Seeing that you were drugged, I was honestly just trying to take care of you."

"Oh shit. Did I beg?" Her lip quivered and I knew she was close to tears.

I leaned down and brushed my nose past hers. "You begged a lot, and I did what I could to satisfy you without making love, Tasha. I wanted you fully aware of what was going on so that it was your decision and not the alcohol talking."

"Oh." She glanced down and took a shaky breath. "I got pregnant at sixteen and my mother was horrified. The guy was my first and I thought he loved me."

I brushed the tears back from her beautiful eyes and pulled her in tighter as she paused. There was no need for me to interrupt. The story still hurt her, but it was in the past. We needed to figure out a way to keep it there.

"I wanted to keep the baby, but with all the drama at home and me playing basketball like nothing had changed, I lost it."

"You miscarried?" I ran my hands over her upper back, pressing in and massaging her as she opened her heart to me.

"Yeah. I've hated myself since." She pressed her forehead against my chest. "I didn't wanna have to raise a child alone, but I never meant to hurt it."

"Of course you didn't." I kissed the back of her head as she held on tightly to me. "I'm right here for you. Don't pull away from me, okay?"

"I don't want to." She glanced up and lifted to her toes, resting her forehead against my lips. "I just don't know how to pull you in instead of push you away."

"I think learning to trust me and our friendship is a start." I smiled as a few naughty thoughts raced through my head. "Letting me take care of you tonight would be another."

"Take care of me?" She leaned back and laughed as she saw the sexy smile on my face. "Oh brother."

"What? I'm still a guy." I picked her up and leaned down to kiss her. "I wanna be your guy."

"I think that's up for discussion."