Trashy (13 page)

Roxie

The view out his windows beckoned me. He had an almost panoramic view of the ocean. The sun was sinking and appeared as a great orange ball floating across the edge of the water. The sky was streaked with peach hues, and the white moving caps of the surf seemed to float on forever.

The sand was inviting, making my toes squirm in my heels, wanting to get out to play, to sink down into the gritty sun-warmed grains.

I couldn’t imagine waking up to this every day. I’d never want to leave.

“Like it?” Adam asked, coming up beside me to stare out across the view.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said, but even the breathtaking views couldn’t keep my eyes from looking at him.

“I run down there every single morning,” he rasped, his voice rough like the crashing waves.

“I’m going to have to start running too, since I’m not going to be dancing every night.”

“You’re perfect the way you are,
Rox,” Adam said, turning his head and looking at me.

We got lost in the moment, the two of us. We stood there in the sinking sunlight of early evening staring at each other, studying every last nuance of each other’s face. It was quiet here, but a comfortable sort of quiet. The kind that sometimes seemed elusive.

The moment broke when Adam’s eyes darkened and he brushed his knuckles over my jaw and trailed them down to my neck. The flesh was still sore. I prayed it didn’t leave marks, but I was terribly afraid they were already starting to form. In fact, I knew they were, because Adam’s eyes tightened when he looked in that direction.

“I don’t play games,” Adam said as he drew his hand back. “I don’t like them.”

I looked back out at the ocean as he spoke.

“You and I have been dancing around each other for years,
Rox. I think we both knew this was inevitable.”

“What?” I turned my head to stare at him once more.

“That you and I… we’re going to happen.”

Yeah, I did know. For a long time, I thought Adam was only a fantasy, someone who would slip through my fingers, but I was wrong.

“I want you, Roxie,” he said clear as day. “I’ve wanted you a long time. It never felt like the right time,” he said, and I nodded because he was right. “I’m tired of waiting for the right time. Tell me you want me.”

“I want you,” I echoed. I wanted him so badly that sometimes it hurt.

Adam reached for me, but I evaded him, pacing across the dark wood floors. “But I’m not good for you,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of baggage, Adam, and I’m very afraid some of it may never go away.”

“I’ve got plenty of baggage of my own,” he said with a sardonic grin.

Yes, but even his four ex-wives combined couldn’t match the shit storm that was Craig.

“You don’t understand,” I told him, sorrow creeping into my tone. “Being with me isn’t safe for you.”

“I think I can handle ya,” he said, amused.

But it wasn’t funny. Nothing about this was. My chest ached so badly I thought it might split in two. How had my life come to this?

“Roxie?” Adam said, finally realizing I was being all too real.

I turned back to him. He’d come closer. He was right beside me, staring into me with his chocolate eyes.

“He threatened you, Adam.” My voice cracked. “He saw us together. He’s so angry and…” My voice cracked again and I drew in a shaky breath.

He draped his arm across my shoulders and steered me to a giant, sleek-looking sofa in the center of the room. It was grounded by a gray-and-white striped carpet and glass coffee table.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Adam said, pulling me down beside him.

I faltered. Did I really want to show him all my skeletons? Did I really want him to know just how pathetic I really was?

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “The more you tell me, the more I can help.”

Help.

I never thought I needed help before. I was used to being on my own, dealing with this alone. Maybe that’s why everything seemed so damn hard. Maybe I needed help. Maybe I needed Adam.

“I met Craig when I was seventeen.” I began. “I grew up in a town I only wanted to leave. Getting out was my only plan.”

He nodded, encouraging me to go on.

“And then I met Craig.”

I felt the change come over him, but he held it back so I wouldn’t stop. I paused because I felt like just barging in with the story about Craig didn’t really tell the full story. Because really, this was about me. For Adam to understand how I ended up in this position, he needed to know
me.

“When I was in high school, I wasn’t datable,” I told him.

He gave me a look that would make lemons rot, and I smiled. I loved that he rejected that idea so readily. It’s like he could never think of me as anything but datable.

I smiled and turned, settling my side against the back of the couch and facing Adam. “I really wasn’t. No one ever asked me out. I was the friend, the buddy, the cute one. I never went to a school dance because no one ever asked me, and I was too insecure to go by myself. I thought it would make me look pathetic.”

“What the hell was wrong with the boys in that town? Were they blind?” Adam asked.

I laughed. “To me? Yes. At least when my best friend was standing there. She was blond and beautiful, the kind of girl that drew all the eyes in a room.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed her,” he said softly. “I would have been too busy looking at you.”

I leaned my head against the cushion and smiled. “Anyway, I told myself I didn’t want a boyfriend anyway, that I wanted out of the town more. I never partied. I never drank or smoked. I got really good grades, and I had a good reputation.”

“Ahh, a good girl.” He smirked.

I poked him in the ribs. “See, you wouldn’t have been interested. Something tells me in high school, you were nothing but trouble.”

“Damn straight.” He grinned. “But I’d have still noticed you.”

“I met Craig one night while we were out bowling,” I said, forging ahead. I really didn’t want to get too caught up in Adam’s pretty words because he might change his tune later. “He was with a group of guys in the lane next to us. I was always the best bowler, and he didn’t want to lose to a girl.” I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about it because it had been a fun night. A fun night I wish never happened.

“We actually had this intense competition going on. He got mad when I was beating him. He rolled his ball so fast down his lane that it bounced over into my lane and gave me a strike.” I grinned.

Adam smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I understood. He knew what was coming. At least some of it.

“Anyway,” I said. “After that night, we all started hanging as a group. There wasn’t much to do in town so a lot of weekends we would get together at someone’s house and watch movies and eat pizza. My best friend had a pool table and a big basement with couches and a TV, so we hung out there a lot. It was always my job to go rent the movies. I have no idea why.” I laughed. “I pick the worst movies. They’re always so lame.” I stuck my tongue out and Adam laughed.

“They would make fun of me for it but still send me the next week. Maybe they secretly wanted to see what horrible thing I’d bring home next.”

I realized something as I talked… I realized these memories were attached to Craig, to the feelings I had for him, the feelings that always pulled me back in. But these memories… they weren’t even about him. They were about good times I’d spent with my friends, and he just happened to be there.

The thought was a little sobering.

“Rox?” Adam said, reaching over and taking my hand, threading our fingers together and resting them between us on the couch.

“So one night Craig wanted to ride with me to the video store. I was secretly thrilled. He—” I glanced up at Adam, not sure if I could really be honest.

“You can say anything, sweetheart,” he whispered.

“He always looked at me like I was the only girl in the room. Like he noticed I was more than friendship material, you know?”

He nodded.

“For a girl who’d never really gotten any attention from guys before, being singled out like that really meant something to me.”

“So he went with you,” Adam said.

I nodded. “He went every time after that. We’d sing along to the blaring music, roll the windows down even in the winter, and wear
hoodies to stay warm. Sometimes we’d eat Fritos out of a giant bag. We were friends… but there was more between us, you know? We had this chemistry. It was almost like we were magnets always being pulled together, even in a room full of people.”

“Sounds intense,” he rumbled, stroking his thumb over the back of my hand.

“Yeah,” I said, thinking about it. “It was. It was fun and light… but underneath it all, it was very intense. Sometimes even our friends would comment on the chemistry that seemed to pulse between us. Looking back, I see how dangerous that was… how much power it gave him over me. I wasn’t prepared for that at seventeen. It was way too much too fast.”

“You loved him.”

I nodded, looking away. “I loved him a lot. More than I ever realized you could love someone.”

This heaviness descended upon my chest. It sat just below my ribs like a carnivorous pit in my stomach. Loving someone so much like that… it was consuming. I used to lie in bed at night and worry about what would happen if it ever went away, how I would live without that kind of connection with someone.

My fears turned into my nightmare in so many ways.

I felt Adam’s stare but still couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I mean, I can’t imagine what he was thinking, to hear the girl he’d just said he wanted had been so in love with someone else… to hear her tell him about all the best times we had.

I cleared my throat and kept talking. Now that I had started, it was like I couldn’t stop. “I finally got to go to a dance. He took me to my senior prom. He missed the prom at his high school so he could bring me to mine. After the after party, we ate Taco Bell at one in the morning, and I wore his baseball hat in the car.”

It hurt to remember these things. It was like mourning someone who died. Someone who just wasn’t there anymore, someone you genuinely thought would be there forever.

“I was a virgin when we met,” I told him. “And I stayed a virgin for about six months after we started dating. We made out constantly. It got pretty heated sometimes, but he never pushed me into anything I wasn’t ready for. When I finally asked him…” I flicked my gaze up. “When I told him I was ready, he used protection. He always treated me like I was important.”

“This is fucking hard to hear,
Rox,” Adam said, his voice gravelly.

“It’s hard to say,” I admitted. “It’s hard to feel.”

“The thought of you with him, it makes me crazy. I hear what you’re saying—hell, I even understand—but then I look at you and I see the marks on your neck… and goddamn it, Roxie, the side of your face is still red. He hit you, didn’t he?”

I chewed my lower lip and nodded.

Adam let loose a string of curses and pulled his hand out of mine. He jumped off the couch and paced to the window and stood with his back to me, staring out over the waves. By this time, the sun was going down, sinking behind the water, and the sky was dusky, the room growing dim.

“Maybe I should go,” I said, getting up from the couch.

“No,” he said but didn’t turn around. “Finish.”

I hesitated for a long time, but then I started talking again. “Things were good for a while after we started sleeping together. He treated me really good. But it started to change.”

“Change how?” Adam asked, still not looking at me.

“Craig’s friends liked to party. Everyone knew it. Hell, most everyone in that town liked to party. It was the only way to blow off steam. When he wasn’t with me, he was with them a lot. Some of his friends didn’t like me because he spent a lot of time with me. I think they were jealous.”

I stood up from the couch and paced to the other side of the room, careful to give Adam space. “Craig started drinking. A lot. He started using drugs. I don’t know what kind. I never asked. When we’d go out with friends as a group, he’d drink beforehand. He’d scrutinize what I was wearing. Sometimes he’d throw a fit and tell me I was dressed too provocatively. Sometimes when we were out, he’d yell at other guys he said were checking me out. When we played pool, he’d stand behind me when I bent over the table so no one else could check out my ass.”

Adam grunted. I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t ask.

“We started fighting. He grew distant. He’d come around smelling like a brewery, and he’d say the most awful things to me. I’d get angry and hurt, but then he’d sober up and apologize. He’d take me in his arms and tell me how sorry he was, that he loved me, and that he needed to get the hell away from his friends and all their influence.

“I was an idiot,” I said, knowing it was true. “I loved him so much that I wanted to forgive him. I thought everything would go back to the way it was.”

“It didn’t,” Adam said.