The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel (47 page)

Suddenly Rhett and I were alone again, though this time I looked at him differently, curiosity burned beneath my skin.
What did Cayden mean when he talked about what Rhett went through after I left? What is Badger, like an actual Badger?

“Where are we going?” I asked instead, stubbing out my cigarette in the grass.

A small smile spread across his face, taking my breath away. I don’t know how he did it. How that smile could make me melt, but it had always been the same. Since the first time he smiled at me all those years ago when I was just a little girl with a crush. It left me feeling breathless, the way his green eyes twinkled. “It’s a surprise.”

TEN

“Tell me something.” I sat across from Faye. She twisted her spoon around in her cup of ice cream.

“Like what?” She didn’t look up at me. She hadn’t met my gaze all day. Our conversations had been nothing but superficial small talk, through lunch, dinner and everything in between. I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps I was the hopeless person, the one that thought things would be different after last night, after this morning.

“Anything.” I’d brought her to Denton, a small city about an hour north of Dallas. I’d discovered it a few years ago when a friend of Cayden’s invited us to the opening of his tattoo shop. It hadn’t lasted a year, but the city square became one of my favorite places to go to think.

She shrugged, swirling her spoon in the melting concoction.

Frustration swam through me.

“Please.” I hated the way I sounded, but I wasn’t beyond begging. Not now, not after all this time.

She glanced up at me, her dark gaze meeting mine for the first time all day. “I don’t like ice cream.”

Laughter bubbled on my lips, escaping my throat, a foreign sound.

A smile quirked at her lips, which only made the laughter come harder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her lips curled, revealing her teeth. “You seemed adamant about bringing me here.”

“Of course I did! This is Beth Marie’s ice cream shop. They have the
best
homemade ice cream. I couldn’t just bring you to Denton without bringing you here.” I paused and watched her twirl her spoon some more. “Plus, everyone likes ice cream.”

“Not me.” She pushed her bowl toward me, still smiling. “You can have the rest of mine.”

“Oh my gosh, this is a crime. You didn’t even try it!” I nudged the bowl back in her direction.

“Cause I know I won’t like it.” She pushed it back toward me.

“You will like Beth Marie’s special recipe strawberry ice cream.” I picked the spoon up and loaded it with a big bite. “Just try it.”

She stared at the scoop with uncertainty. “I won’t.”

I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “Come on. You have to try it.”

“Oh yeah?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Says who?”

“Me.” I moved it closer to her face.

“You’re not going to convince me to eat it.”

“Come on. Try it for me.”

“For you? Why should I?” The curiosity in her voice wasn’t innocent. There was something else there. Something bitter.

“Because it’s good.” I wouldn’t let her take this there. To the past.

“I don’t trust you.”

I blinked. People moved around our table in the small ice cream shop with black and white tile floors. The playful moment was gone. I couldn’t get it back now.

I set the spoon down in her bowl and leaned back in my chair. “You know why I like coming here?”

She looked uncertain. “Why?”

“It smells like sugar.” I chuckled at how ridiculous I sounded. “It’s so sweet, it’s almost too much.”

“That’s why you like coming here?”

I shrugged.
Where am I going with this?
“It’s like you know it, the moment you walk through the door. The ice cream is full of sugar. You can smell in the air, it saturates everything. But you still come in. You still buy the ice cream, even though it’s bad for you. Even though there’s too much sugar.”

“So—”

“So sometimes it’s okay to indulge. It’s okay to let go, just for a little bit, even if you know it’ll be bad for you in the end.” I didn’t know what this was. Why we were here, but I knew I didn’t want it to end. But it would end, of that I was certain. It would be bad. It would ruin me, and I didn’t know if I would survive it. But I didn’t want to think about that now. I didn’t want to go back to that place, that lonely place I’d been in for six years.

I stared into her eyes, those deep brown eyes. Eyes that had plagued every second since the moment I forced her into the back of my car all those years ago. She knew what it was like to indulge. We’d done it last night. We’d let it all go in exchange for sex. For those vibrant moments where nothing else mattered but our bodies moving together as one. Fucking. That’s what she had called it. And that was fine. I would take her any way I could have her. But I didn’t want her to hide like she was now. I wouldn’t let the past tarnish these moments we were having.

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, her eyes never leaving mine. She picked up the spoon. Two drops of pink liquid dripped onto the wooden table before she slipped the bite into her mouth.

I sat with bated breath as she swallowed.

A smile crept over her lips. “That tastes awful.”

Something between a bark and a laugh escaped my mouth as I stared at her in disbelief. My heart beat rapidly in my chest.

“You really don’t like it?”

She shook her head slowly, still smiling. “I like survival shows.”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

She scooted the bowl away. “You wanted me to tell you something. I like those shows like ‘Jim and the Great Outdoors,’ have you seen that one?”

I shook my head.

“What about ‘Man vs. Wild’?” she asked. “That one is pretty good too, but not as good as ‘Jim and the Great Outdoors’. They basically send this guy out who has no survival experience just to see how long he can do it. It’s kind of awful, but it’s so funny.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”

And just like that, things were different. The gloom that had been hanging over us all day was gone. It disappeared with that bite of ice cream.

We sat inside Beth Marie’s talking for hours about television, books, even politics. I shouldn’t have been surprised she was so well versed on the world. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but be completely baffled with the woman before me.

She was different. Someone else. Not that girl I had once known.

We stayed at the ice cream shop until they kicked us out at closing time.

“This is a beautiful place,” Faye said as we walked down the sidewalk from Beth Marie’s. Denton’s late nineteenth century courthouse loomed over us, the center of the square where Beth Marie’s was just one of many businesses. Big oak trees covered the courthouse lawn, lit up with sparkling white lights.

“Come on.” I led her across the street to the lawn. There were other people there. A hippie couple playing a guitar and tambourine, a group of teenagers climbing on the courthouse steps, a couple kissing on a nearby bench.

“Are the trees lit up like this all the time?” She stared up at them, her hair rustling in the breeze. The glitter of the lights reflected in her eyes. The sight of her took my breath away. Seeing her here. This was my thinking place. My escape. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I would drive here and sit on the square and watch the other wandering souls. I’d never brought anyone else.

Not until now.

I had dreamed about her all these years, but my dreams were a pathetic comparison to how she was under the glowing lights in her tiny blue jeans shorts and black t-shirt. She was like a goddess.

“Yes,” The word came out almost as a whisper as I dug in my pocket for my phone and hit the camera icon. It was probably inappropriate, but I wanted to remember this. I wanted to have it on my phone forever. Faye staring up at the trees like this, her face smooth of worry, light dancing in her eyes.

“Did you just take my picture?” she asked as I dropped my phone back in my pocket.

“Maybe.” I smiled.

“I never agreed to any pictures.” She shook her finger at me playfully.

“You never disagreed with me taking pictures.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Hmm, fair point, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” I quirked a brow at her. “I just had to listen to you talk about some guy named Jim surviving in the outdoors for over and hour, and you
suppose
I make a fair point at wanting to take your picture?”

“Jim is awesome and that show is the bomb! You know you’re going to go home and watch it!” She giggled and made to move around me, but I snagged her by her waist, tickling her sides. She burst into laughter and tried to get away, but I didn’t let her go. I tickled her until she was breathless and we both tumbled to the ground.

“You can—” she paused sucking in a deep breath, “—tickle me all you want. But the show is still fucking amazing. You’re just jealous you haven’t seen it.”

“Maybe.” I leaned up on one elbow, looking down at her. Leaves were stuck in her hair from the fall and I plucked them out, tossing them aside. “I tell you what, I’ll watch that show, if you watch it with me.”

She stared up at me. I expected her to laugh, giggle, make another joke and then I would tickle her again. But she didn’t. She stared up me, her eyes covering every inch of my face like I was a riddle she couldn’t figure out.

“Tell
me
something, now.” She pushed up on her elbows, putting her face only inches away from mine.

“I—”

“Tell me about your tattoo.” She touched my chest, where the Old English lettering of the name Josh was concealed.

“Well…” I let the word trail off. I hadn’t talked about it in a long time.

“Please,” she whispered the word and hung there between us.

I let out a rush of air. “It was a car accident. My friend Josh was driving.” I shrugged my shoulders blinking away that night. “He didn’t survive.”

Her brows creased in the center. “That’s awful.” She paused. “Tell me the rest.”

Her words surprised me. Anyone who had ever asked took my story at that and let it go.

“I don’t remember when that happened.” She ran her fingers over her lips in thought, her fingertips lingering on the faint pink scar in the corner of one of her mouth.

“It was after you left.” I paused “The first time.”

She nodded slowly. “You were in the car with him?”

“Yes.” I laid back on the ground and looked up at the sprawling tree above us. The lights made it seem ethereal, like it was glowing in the darkness. “But I don’t remember anything. I was drunk, passed out in the back seat. I remember getting in the car at the party…” I let my words trail off as I searched my head for any recollection of that time. I’d done this thousands, millions of times since the accident, but I couldn’t remember anything. “The next thing I remember is waking up the hospital with a concussion and alcohol poisoning and Jessica telling me that Josh was dead.” I regretted the last sentence as soon as it left my mouth.

“My mother was there?”

“Yes.” I thought hard about that day when I woke up. Jessica was the only one in the room when I came to. She was so concerned, so worried about me. Hate bubbled beneath my skin. Jessica had fooled me with her lies, going to her grave with the truth about what happened to Faye.

I wanted to say more, but I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say.

“You don’t remember anything at all?” Faye relaxed next to me, lying flat on her back, surprising me.

“I don’t.”

“That seems very fortunate,” she said quietly.

The teenagers chuckled in the distance while the breeze swirled around us.

“I always wonder if he said anything.” I glanced over at her. She was looking up at the trees, her dark eyes like clear glass. “If he reached for me in those last moments, or cried out for me to help him.” I looked away from her and back up at the trees. “Maybe he had something to say. Maybe he told me something important that I never heard.” I sucked in a deep breath. “That’s why I got the tattoo. So everyday I would be reminded of the things I couldn’t remember.”

Faye’s thin fingers slipped between mine. They were warm, soft against my palm. “Maybe he didn’t say anything. Maybe the reality of what really happened at the scene wasn’t important at all. Maybe it’s a blessing you don’t remember.”

I thought of all the things Faye had lived through, the years of abuse inflicted on her by my father. The drugs, the prostitution, the men who raped her. All those things she would remember. She would carry those burdens for the rest of her life and here we were lying on the courtyard lawn staring up oak trees with me wishing for a burden I would never have to have.

“You’re right.”

“I usually am these days.”

A smile tugged at my lips. I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her all the things I’d held inside for so many years. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry for lying. For not telling her I loved her. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t him. My father. I wanted her to know that I had changed. That I wasn’t all bad. That a day hadn’t passed without her being there in my thoughts.