The Debt (5 page)

The door to Hadley’s class swung open, people pouring into the hall. Asha pushed her way into the stampede.

“Late much?” She snagged Hadley by the wrist to tug her over. “I met Josh already. We’re old friends now. Ready to go?”

Hadley dug her sunglasses out of her messenger bag and slid them on top of her head. “You don’t mind, Josh?”

“No. But, uh, how is she getting home?”

Making another trip into the city and back today was out of the question.

“I’ll catch a ride with Trey.” Asha put her arm around Hadley and turned on her heel to head down the hallway. “You coming or what?”

Well, damn. That was something.

“Fuck it!” Corey shouted as he crashed into the greenroom. He was always half deaf after our shows. “We don’t need a fourth guy. We killed it tonight.”

We’d auditioned two replacements for Scott but found no one we could all agree on.

“There’s still that guy from my econ class.” Trey took a swig of water and wiped a towel over his face. “And, uh, What’s-his-face.”

“I want to keep looking.” I collapsed on the scratchy brown couch and stretched my arms along the back. “It’s only been a couple weeks.”

“I’m getting used to splitting the cash three ways,” Corey said. “It’s a nice bump in my income.”

Asha, looking like the unholy love child of Skrillex and an Iron Maiden album cover, pranced her happy ass inside and straight to Trey’s lap. “You guys just missed an entertaining after-show.”

“Thanks for knocking,” I said.

“Nasty.” She recoiled when Trey wrapped his sweaty arms around her waist. “You’re all gross.”

Those two as a couple was difficult to get my head around. He was a buttoned-up take-home-to-daddy type. Asha was...something else.

Corey sank onto the couch beside me. “What happened?”

“One of your groupies got tossed out,” Asha announced, wiping her lipstick from Trey’s cheek. “Some blond chick Hadley was talking to earlier. She was arguing with some guy and threw a drink at him. Bouncer tried to break it up and the guy slugged him. They both got dragged to the door.”

“What does that have to do with us?” I asked.

“She kept shouting that they couldn’t kick her out because she was with the band. I think her name was Stacey?”

“Stephanie?” Trey shot me an accusing look.

“Yep, that’s it.”

Wonderful. Somehow this would become my fault. Like my dick was responsible for the future indiscretions of everyone it came into contact with.

“On that note...” Corey stood up and pulled a fresh shirt out of his bag. “I’m buying the first round.”

“Oh, Corey, there’s someone I want you to meet.” Asha hopped up, briefly scowling at Corey’s post-show stench. “She’s just your type. But I’m warning you now—she hates your music. So, maybe skip over that part of the conversation. And put on some deodorant.”

“Does she have a nice rack?”

Asha smacked his arm, tilting her head back to glare at him. “You’re a pig. I have a class with her, so don’t embarrass me.”

“You’re impossible to embarrass,” I said.

“True. But still. At least don’t hump her leg. And try to make eye contact, okay?”

“Do I do that?” Corey looked between me and Trey. “I’ve never humped a girl’s leg in a bar, right? I’ve clubbed a few over the head and dragged them back to my hut, but I’m not a canine.”

“I regret this already,” Asha groaned as she tugged him out. “I don’t know why I bother.”

By the time I got our pay from Nate, Hadley was at the bar in the middle of Andre and his friends. Since I had no interest in playing the fifth wheel to Trey and Asha trying to engineer a love connection between Corey and the girl of the week, I hung out at the end of the bar with a glass of Jameson. I was maybe a half hour into tracing patterns in the wood grain of the sticky bar top, half my attention on Hadley laughing among the din of conversation, when Kate slid in beside me.

“You look like shit,” she said, waving down the bartender. “Want another?”

I glanced down at my untouched drink, then back to the empty spot where Hadley no longer stood. Fuck it. I swallowed the mouthful of whiskey and nodded at Troy to pour me a second with Kate’s gin and tonic.

“You sounded good tonight.” Kate turned her back to the bar, pulling the little black straw toward her lips to sip her drink and make sure I watched her do it.

“You don’t care.”

“No, I don’t.”

Kate wasn’t here for the music. Blond hair tied up in a messy bun. Oversized cropped T-shirt hanging just right over her tits. I took a moment to appreciate how the light created a fuzzy outline along the legs of her tight leather pants. Fifteen minutes later, I appreciated the way the material stuck to her pale ass as I peeled the leather to her thighs and bent her over the sink in the greenroom.

Staring at myself in the mirror, my mind was on anything but sex. In my head, I composed a melody that had plagued me recently.

With both hands gripping the sink, Kate was demanding. Harder. Faster. More. I composed the bridge, hearing the chords clearly as she reached her orgasm.

I tried to get there. Grabbing her hips, I slammed into her. Harder. Faster. More. But I couldn’t come. My body wanted it. Every muscle begged for release. When she braced her hand against my leg to tell me to slow down, I gave up and faked it before I slipped out of her and quickly tossed the condom.

I was fucking pathetic.

That night, like most nights, I dreamt of Hadley.

I couldn’t get enough of her lips. There was an entire naked landscape of Punky beneath me, but all I wanted to do was feel her mouth on mine. She tasted like sugar and salt, soda and popcorn. Lying in her bed, I was wrapped in the scent of her hair, her skin. It soaked into every part of me.

And she laughed at me.

“What?” I looked down into her eyes, Hadley’s face barely visible in the darkness.

“I can’t help it. You’re funny.”

“Why? Am I not—”

“No.” She wove her fingers through my hair, tugging my face closer to hers. “You’re a good kisser. Are you ready?”

“Are you?”

She nodded with a cute, nervous smile and bit her lip. My dick twitched every time she did that, and this time Hadley noticed, giggling at me.

“You have to stop doing that. You’re killing my ego.”

“Sorry,” she said, sucking her lips together to hold back a laugh.

Balancing my weight on one forearm beside her pillow, I reached between us and held my dick in my right hand, adjusting my position to find her entrance. Her breath caught when I slid the head of my cock through her slit. I froze there, thrilled and terrified about what came next.

“Go ahead,” she said, spreading her legs and placing her hands around my back to urge me forward.

Slowly, I pushed inside her, deliberate and excruciating. I was scared to hurt her and afraid I might buckle under the pressure to restrain myself. She cringed, tensing. My forehead dropped to hers.

“I’m okay. Keep going. Gently.”

Inch by inch.

“Still okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Inch by inch.

“I’m—”

Hadley looked into my eyes. It was the sweetest, most vulnerable expression I’d ever seen, and it broke my fucking heart. It seemed barbaric that I had to cause her pain to love her.

“I’m ready.” Her fingers flexed against my back. “Do it.”

I pushed past her barrier and stilled inside her. She clenched around me, squeezing my cock as she adjusted to the pain. Neither of us could take a breath. My arms shook to hold my body in place.

Then Punky let out a long exhale and smiled, bright and mischievous. “That part sucked.”

All the tension drained from my muscles as I kissed her forehead. “Sorry?”

“Yeah. Gah, you should be. That thing’s dangerous.”

“You want to keep going, or should I pack up my toys and go home?”

“Well, we’re already here, so...”

The bliss was short-lived. It was always at that moment that my conscious mind tried to take control of the dream. I knew where this was going, but no matter how hard I fought for a different outcome, the result was the same.

My hips jerked. Sweat slid down my spine. Moving inside her, every muscle clenched for release.

“Hadley,” I panted, “I’m gonna come.”

My fingers went numb and a cold shiver crept up my legs. I came on her stomach because what the fuck, I didn’t know what I was doing and we didn’t have a condom. The relief of climax turned to a sick, black feeling that squeezed my stomach. My chest caved in. No air could reach my lungs. Everywhere my naked skin was exposed felt like acid bubbling on the flesh.

I saw him kneeling over me. Smelled the musty carpet of the foster home. The moment he opened his eyes and looked down at what he’d done, as if it only then occurred to him that he was a monster.

I woke from the nightmare in a puddle of sweat, the bedsheets tangled around my feet. There wasn’t enough air in the room. I gasped, choking on my own spit, seizing with panic. My right hand firmly gripped my semi-erect cock. On my abdomen, a stream of semen.

Falling out of bed, I scrambled in the dark to my bathroom. With the door shut behind me, I crawled in total darkness to the toilet and poured out my stomach, heaving with violent convulsions. Everything hurt. Even the air from the vent above me was too much stimulation against my flesh. The disgusted, unnerving feeling persisted in agitating every inch of me.

When there was nothing left to throw up, I stumbled into the bathtub and let the spray from the showerhead drown me until the shaking stopped.

During a panic attack, I always had an absolute certainty that I was going to die. I mean, in that moment, with my lungs caving in like two wrinkled, expended balloons, the only thing real was his rough hands on my bare skin and the thought that I was going to die on my bathroom floor with my dick in my hand and semen between my fingers.

Every single time.

Nothing helped. There was no cure that packed the memories of that man away and locked the box. I just kept hoping that if I tried, maybe one day I’d fight my way past it. That surely there had to arrive a day when I could have sex with a woman and come without faking it or shriveling up in a ball. The alternative was too devastating to consider.

The next morning, I woke to a loud
thwack
as something hard smacked me on the forehead. Sunlight bled through my clenched eyelids.

“Get up, jerkoff.”

I knew that voice. I loathed that voice. Another
thwack
, this one to the bridge of my nose. I groaned, swatting at the air to no avail. Evil hag.

“Get.”
Thwack
. “Up.”
Thwack
.

“Fucking hell, Asha. Lay off me. And get the fuck out of my room.” I pulled a pillow over my face. I was naked under the sheets. Unless she wanted a show, she needed to leave.

“No.”

Goddammit! That little wench smacked my nuts through the blanket with what now definitely felt like a rolled magazine.

“Shit,” I hissed, and clutched my junk as I rolled over. “What is wrong with you?”

“We need to talk. Now.” The bed dipped as she sat on the edge.

“What time is it? Why are you here?”

“Morning, asshat. Hadley and I are going out. Honestly, Josh, I thought she was exaggerating.”

That got my attention. I tossed the pillow aside and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. There was Asha, glaring daggers. I put the pillow over my lap.

“Hadley? What did she say?”

“Oh, now you’re interested? This needs to stop.” She waved the rolled magazine over me. “First, it’s gross. Second, it’s gross! Third, I can’t believe you’d do that to her.”

“Hey. You’re way out of your depth here. This is my house and my room. Feel free to fuck off. I don’t need your approval.”

“You two have a twisted relationship. I see you looking at her like a sad puppy half the time. The other half you’re just blatantly staring at her ass like you’re going to drop to your knees and take a bite out of it. And here’s the real kicker: She’s looking at you, too, asshole. While you’re up there singing, Hadley is eye-fucking you like she might burst a blood vessel.” She stopped, staring at me as if I’d missed my cue. “Shall I go on, or are you getting a clear picture?”

“You’re full of shit.”

“No, Josh. I’m just the only person who cares enough to tell you the truth but not enough to worry about pissing you off. So, suck on that.” She smacked me on the nose again to emphasize her point and then sauntered toward the door.

“Why do you care?”

“Maybe I’m a sucker for a lost cause. Don’t make a fool of me, Josh. I can be an ally. If you can get your shit together.”

“I don’t want your advice.”

“No, you don’t.” Asha took a hard look at me. I got the impression she found me lacking on a fundamental level. That shit pissed me off. “But you should take it. Step one: try keeping it in your pants. You’re this close”—she held her fingers an inch apart—“to losing her.” With that, Asha walked out of my room and slammed the door behind her.

What the fuck just happened?

There was no trace of breakfast waiting for me downstairs. Not even a discarded meal in the trash can or a note saying, “Fend for yourself, dickhead.” Nothing. Just a too-big and empty house. I didn’t much care for that feeling. Even though I’d heard the girls leave after I’d gotten out of the shower, I still stopped at the bottom of the stairs and glanced at the living room—not expecting Hadley to be there with her fingers up, but still sort of hoping she would be.

Fine. Whatever. This was better. Hadley was out having fun with a girlfriend, doing girly shit, and I could be lazy on a Sunday morning in peace. Perfect.

Except that the house was too big and too quiet. And Punky hated girly shit. And I hadn’t bothered to buy cereal the last time we’d gone shopping.

On an empty stomach, I went to the garage. I picked up my acoustic guitar and attempted to play the bits and pieces of the song that had been swirling around in my head, but it was complete garbage, nothing like the melody that had so easily composed itself last night.

Rachmaninoff’s
Piano Concerto No. 3
, partially tattooed to wind around my right forearm, stared back at me as I strummed.

I used to wake up at the crack of dawn like every morning was Christmas. I’d run down the stairs, push open the heavy soundproof door to the music room, and spend hours fiddling with Carmen’s piano. At first it was just noise. One morning, my mother came in and sat quietly amused as I played total nonsense. But it wasn’t nonsense to her. Something in the notes struck her. We sat at the piano all morning and well into the afternoon as she attempted to teach me a simple series of notes.

I had learned to play “Chopsticks” on the piano in three days. The usual melodies and nursery rhymes were within my repertoire in three months. I could reproduce nearly any song I heard by ear in the first year under Carmen’s instruction. It escalated and grew until I won state competitions against students twice my age. Juilliard invited me. Harvard, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center. And it all went by so fast.

The first song I’d ever composed was a birthday present for Hadley. My mom had suggested that I write her a song—something thoughtful, personal, and unique. Give her a gift that only I could. Carmen was great like that.

I played the song at Hadley’s tenth birthday party after we’d finished eating cake and her other friends had left with their parents. Hadley cried when I finished the song. I was terrified as I searched her eyes and those of my parents. I thought I’d upset her. I thought she hated it. For a few seconds, I seriously considered running. But Hadley insisted they were happy tears. That concept made not a damn lick of sense. She laughed, hugged me, and said she loved it. She used to make me play it for her constantly while she hung around during my rehearsals. Well, she didn’t make me. I’d have played her anything so long as she looked at me like I was hot shit.

At some point in my reminiscing, I’d stopped strumming. My fingers had the neck of my acoustic guitar in a death grip. The imprint of the strings was red in my palm as I pried my hand free and set the instrument down.

Three hours later, Asha’s words still plagued me—not that I had a reason to put an ounce of faith in the tiny devil.

To prove that I wasn’t completely uncivilized, I spent a few hours whittling down my laundry pile. That task didn’t require any actual work past starting the machine and switching out loads, so I kept up the cleaning mode as I went over the rest of the house. It was too damn big.

Sometime between trying to figure out how to empty the vacuum bin and throwing the fucking thing across the room when I finally pried it loose, I realized that I was agitated, cranky. I had a temper tantrum over a fucking vacuum. Everything was out of sorts, and it made me antsy.

Fuck this shit.

I met up with Corey and Trey at a pub downtown, where they were finishing a game of pool. I got a beer and a round for the guys, taking a stool at the table in the corner.

On a Sunday afternoon, only a few old guys occupied the bar, chain-smoking while watching soccer on the tiny TV on the wall. The pleather cushions on the stools were all ripped and held together with duct tape. The felt on the tables was scuffed, and there wasn’t a straight cue stick in the building.

Trey scratched and sent his stripe in the pocket. “You’re bad luck,” he told me as he grabbed his beer from the table. “I was up three shots on Corey before you showed up.”

“That’s a matter of perspective. Corey’s not complaining.”

“Yeah. Come over here and rub my ball for luck,” Corey said as he picked the cue ball out of the pocket and held it up. “Trey owes me a new drum head if I win.”

I winked at Corey over the rim of my beer bottle. “Bring ’em over here, handsome.”

He laughed, then missed his wide-open shot entirely. “Fuck.”

“My bad. I didn’t mean to get you all hot and bothered.”

“Don’t tease me.”

Corey plopped down on the stool across from me and chugged almost half the beer in one huge gulp. It was like his thick neck was just one big drain straight to his stomach.

Trey got up to take his turn. “Have you heard from Scott lately?”

“Texted me demanding a cut from his last gig. I told him to fuck off. Why?”

Trey made his shot easily and proceeded to sink one after another while Corey hung his head.

“Came asking me about it. I told him it was up to you.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s the deal: You handle the money, Corey does promotion, and I take care of the gear.” He chalked his cue, circling the table to line up his next shot.

“And what was Scott’s role?”

“Nothing. He missed that day of rehearsal.”

The cue ball cracked off a stripe to knock it into the corner pocket.

“You guys are so tough on him.” Corey swigged his beer. “He just needs a little help.”

“Hey, how’d it go with the blonde? Grace, right?” I asked him. “The one Asha pushed on you.”

Trey sank the eight ball with a decisive
thunk
, winning the game. “She hates him.”

“Already? Doesn’t it usually take at least four hours for a chick to decide you’re a pervert?”

“Nah,” Corey said, huge grin on his face. “Not that long. I think I’m in love,” he barked through a laugh.

“You lost me.”

Corey was the best kind of friend, but he had the emotional maturity of a dachshund.

“She’s the future ex-Mrs. Clark. Legs for days. Round ass. Great tits. Fuck, I got a stiffy just looking at her lips. Really fuckable lips.”

“That makes no sense.”

“She’ll come around. And it would be the perfect relationship. Since everything I say pisses her off, we just won’t talk.”

“Great plan. Let me know how that goes.”

“She asked Asha about coming to the show next week.” Trey took a seat at the table. “Either Grace is a closeted rock groupie or a glutton for punishment.”

Corey spun his bottle cap on the sticky wood tabletop. “I’ll spank her if that’s what she’s into.”

“Speaking of Asha. I woke up naked with her this morning. You need to do a better job of putting your toys away at night.”

Trey flipped me off and then chucked his empty beer bottle in the trash can behind the pool table. “That girl does what she wants. I’m just along for the ride.”

I respected that about him. Trey wasn’t the jealous type. I couldn’t remember him ever getting into it over a girlfriend before, or ever having a bad breakup. He’d tell the girl that it was over, and by the end of the talk, she’d thank him for his honesty and all that shit.

“At any rate, I’d consider it a favor if my personal life was not a topic of conversation with you two,” I told him. “She busted into my room, smacked me around with a magazine, and crossed too far over my not-your-damn-business line.”

“You know,” Corey said, “some guys pay for that kind of kink.”

“Neat.”

Her diatribe had been running laps around my head all day. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything without her irritating voice talking over my thoughts. I also couldn’t get over the fact that Hadley had talked to her about the girls I hooked up with.

“Trust me,” Trey said, “I know what to do with a beautiful woman, and it doesn’t include talking about you.”

“So...” I eyed my beer. Nothing left but the bubbles of backwash around the beveled bottom. “She swept Hadley out of the house first thing this morning.”

“Fuck yeah,” Corey barked as he slammed his fist on the table, shaking our bottles. “Pay up!”

Trey narrowed his eyes at me as he dug a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and slapped it down in front of Corey. “Just so you know, Josh, I was on your side. You let me down.”

“The fuck is that about?” I caught the bill before Corey could pull it away. “You’re betting on me?”

“Betting against you.” He tugged the bill out from under my hand.

“Start talking.”

Why was I suddenly so fucking interesting?

“I bet Trey that you couldn’t go twenty minutes without asking about Hadley.”

Corey looked so proud of himself. I wanted to knock that stupid smirk off his face.

“You didn’t make it ten.”

“We have plans on Sundays. We have, you know, shit to do. We have a routine.”

“
You
have a routine,” Trey said. Semantics. “And Hadley just goes along with it. Didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe Hadley misses having other friends? I like you, but sometimes you’re shitty company.”

Of course I’d thought about it. I knew it wasn’t Punky’s preference that her entire social calendar included school, hanging around the house with my sorry ass, and going to gigs with the band. But everything changed after the night I left her alone.