Chapter 11
11
Aviva
I was sweating by the time I got to The Stacks, the bar I worked at with Tovah. I dragged open the thick, wooden door with the tiny gold sign, aware that my hair was in complete, just-got-fucked disarray. At least I hadn’t put on makeup today. I was already enough of a mess.
And I hadn’t had a chance to go by the IT center and befriend a techie to help me hack into Joshua Jensen’s cloud account, damn it.
Tomorrow, I promised myself. It would be my first priority tomorrow.
Alex, the bouncer, looked up when I entered. He was a big guy, on the wrestling team, and Tovah and I couldn’t figure out if he needed the money or did the job for fun. Although I didn’t know how fun it was, checking IDs and kicking out drunk and belligerent college students.
“You better watch out, Dick’s on a rampage,” he advised.
“I’m only a minute late,” I said, sighing .
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Like that matters to the Weiner?”
I laughed, surprised anything was funny to me at the moment. But Alex had nicknamed Dick “the Weiner” one night when we were cleaning up the bar. Dick was the type to get as drunk and belligerent as our worst customers, often declaring himself a “big winner” and the rest of us “real losers.”
“He’s a ‘weiner’ alright,” Alex had told me and Tovah as we set the bar back to rights. The nickname had stuck, even though Dick had no idea.
“Aviva!” the Weiner yelled, startling me and bringing me back to the present. I gritted my teeth. It took everything in me not to call Dick out for being a lousy boss, but I caught Tovah’s wide eyes as she shook her head wildly.
Don’t, she mouthed. He threatened to fire you.
“Aviva, you’re late,” Dick said. “Your shift already started. And I don’t have time for irresponsible employees.”
Barely.
Tovah shook her head again.
I didn’t want to apologize, but I wanted to keep my job. Needed to keep it. My scholarship only covered tuition, and room and board. Books for class, food, transportation: all of that was on me. Not to mention paying the utility bills for Aunt Gladys’s house now that Asher was back at home.
“I’m sorry.” I forced out the words.
I was really sick of powerful men walking all over me. I was especially sick of the ways I gave in.
Like you gave in to Jack? my inner voice mused. I’d come today. Twice. Maybe even three times—that second orgasm lasted so long, it was difficult to tell. What the hell was wrong with me? My solo orgasms had never felt like that. What had made this so horribly pleasurable, when I hadn’t even chosen to do it? I’d been forced. I had no choice. Before, sex had been fully consensual, and I hated it. Now, it was non-consensual, and I liked it—and hated myself.
“How sorry?” Dick leered.
Alex cleared his throat. Dick’s face turned pink, but all he said was, “Go change and help Tovah.”
Grabbing my uniform—tiny black shorts and the high-necked, tight black tank top that Dick had compromised with me on, I went to go change in the back room, making sure the door was locked. As I changed, I glanced over in the mirror, wincing at the faint bruises I saw on my hips, remembering the way Jack had gripped me while he’d forced me up and down on his cock…
I shook my head clear of the memory. Jack, and everything to do with Jack, belonged in a box. I needed to focus on work, school, and getting justice for my brother. That was it.
Unlocking the door and exiting the back room, I headed back to the bar, where Tovah was stacking clean glasses. Dick had disappeared, probably into his office to watch porn. I shuddered.
“Aviva, what is going on?” she whispered. “You’re a mess—again. Did that asshole find you?” I glanced at her, biting my lip.
“Fuck,” she swore. “Aviva, can we please go to the cops? Or let me write an exposé? We need to get you away from him.”
I shook my head, adamant. “We can’t, Tovah. I already told you. He’ll make the NHL believe Asher’s a liar, and ruin my life, while he’s at it. Take any chance of getting a psychology degree away from me.”
“You won’t lose your chance to be a psychologist. And Asher won’t care. I’m going to call him right now. He wouldn’t want you doing this. Hell, he’d come here and fight Jack Feldman himself.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
She reached into her pocket, and I put out a hand to stop her.
“Please, Tovah. Trust me .”
She shook her head, curls—pink today—flying. “You know, you are absolutely the strongest, most selfless person I know. No one else could keep their shit together while being tormented the way Jack’s clearly tormenting you, and no one else would put up with it—even for their family. I love you for it, but it scares me. How far are you going to let this go? I know after your parents were killed, all you had was each other. But when are you going to start protecting yourself, instead of him?”
I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know how to.
She sighed. “What happened today?”
I cleared my throat. “We had sex.”
“What?!” She yelled the word so loudly, Alex glanced up from his stool.
“Everything okay over there?” he asked.
I waved him off. “We’re fine.” Lowering my voice, I hissed at Tovah, “Shh. I don’t want anyone to know.”
Shame was a funny thing. It alienated, isolated, made us lie and obfuscate, all in order to protect ourselves from rejection—except all it did was keep us from the people and support we needed.
The thing was, I wasn’t ashamed of having sex. I wasn’t even ashamed of having been forced to: that wasn’t my fault, that was Jack’s. But I was ashamed of how much I’d liked it.
“Was it awful?” she asked quietly. “Do we need to go get you Plan B?”
I shook my head. “He used a condom. Tovah…” Tovah di dn’t talk about sex much with me, but I knew she’d had it. “Have you ever…enjoyed not having the control? During sex?”
She inhaled, blushing. “Sure, I like CNC, as long as it’s safe, sane, and consensual. But this is none of those things. Why, was it good?”
I nodded, looking away and busying myself with restocking the bar with glassware.
“Aviva, it’s okay to not always want to be in control. Being submissive can be fun. And don’t feel bad, if you liked it. I’m relieved, honestly. At least he didn’t hurt you.”
He had, and it had felt good.
He’d been tender after, and it had felt better.
Before I could tell her more, the door swung open, framing Jack in the dim, warm light of the bar. Isaac Jones stood at his side. Isaac smirked, his dimples showing, but Jack just looked…intense.
Then again, he always looked intense.
What the hell was he doing here? In the week since I’d started at The Stacks, I’d never once seen the Core Four at the bar. So was this a coincidence, or had he figured out where I worked that quickly? I felt heat rising to my chest, my face. He was looking at me like he was remembering my naked body, and he was planning on seeing it again—soon.
I hated him. I hated him for all he’d done to me, and I especially hated the way he made me feel like I was his sole focus. Like the world could end, and he’d stare at me the whole time. My agenda was better achieved in the dark.
He watched me, but he didn’t see me. He thought I was a liar, and a conniving, manipulative, opportunistic bitch.
It hurt. I hated to admit it to myself, but it hurt.
Alex held out his hand for their IDs, checking them over, probably as a formality. He handed them back, and they bumped fists in some jock form of greeting that annoyed me. I wouldn’t call Alex a friend, per se, but I’d at least trusted him a little. Now, I knew better.
Jack walked over to the bar, slowly, steadily, building fear and anticipation in me at his approach. Isaac swaggered after him.
“I got them,” Tovah murmured. “Go handle the other end of the bar.”
I did, making my way toward the two girls who stood at the back end of bar, eyeing Jack and Isaac.
“They’re stupid hot,” one whispered.
The other fanned herself. “I’d happily be in the middle of that sandwich.”
“If you want to be in the middle of a sandwich, I hear the twins are game…but I’ll take Jack Feldman. He’s enough to handle.”
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
If they were interested in Jack, they could have him. I’d happily let them take him off my hands.
They gave me their orders. As I took care of them, I eavesdropped on the other side of the bar.
“If it isn’t the little journalist,” Isaac greeted Tovah with a grin, dimples popping.
She rolled her eyes. “Isaac Jones, why are you such a pain in the ass?”
He laughed. “I guess a good girl like you probably doesn’t know that sometimes a little pain in the ass is a good thing.”
Tovah glared. “Do you two want drinks, or do you want to be assholes?”
Jack ignored her. “Aviva, come here,” he called.
“I can take care of you,” Tovah insisted.
“I bet you can,” Isaac murmured .
“Aviva’s going to take care of me,” Jack informed her, but he was looking at me as he said it. “Aren’t you, princess?”
Tovah mouthed the word princess, then tipped her head toward me, questions in her eyes. I knew what she was asking. Why does he call you princess? and What do you want me to do?
To the first, I had no answer, although I’m sure it was cruel and insulting. I answered the second out loud.
Popping the top off the hard seltzers the girls had ordered, I passed them over, taking their credit card and running it through the machine before handing it back.
“Switch with me,” I called to Tovah, and as I headed the dreaded length of the bar back toward Jack, imagining how good it would feel to pour an entire pitcher of Blue Moon over his head, the girl who was interested in Jack said to the other, “He calls her princess ?”
I had to resist telling her she didn’t want Jack to call her princess. Not if it meant putting up with everything he’d done so far to me.
But maybe she’d like it like I did.
That thought pissed me off so much, I stomped the last few steps over to Jack.
“Fire in your eyes,” he murmured. “Did I manage to piss you off, sweetheart?”
“Don’t call me that,” I told him, quietly but clearly. “Don’t call me sweetheart, don’t call me princess. Don’t call me little thief or little spy or anything other than Aviva.”
His own eyes went cold. “I’ll call you anything I want to call you.”
I shook my head. “Not in public you won’t, unless you want Alex to boot you out of here and ban you for life.”
Isaac whistled. “Not a great idea to make him angry.”
“I’m going to remind you, once , who is calling the shots here,” Jack said, also quietly. His hand covered mine, and it might look sweet from other points of view, but I could feel the power and threat of his hand. He’d left fingerprints on my hips; he could do worse, I was sure of it. “It’s obvious you don’t like giving up control, but that’s the game we’re playing here. Got it?”
I shook my head. “My bar, my rules.”
Jack stared at me for a long moment, his eyes searching mine. There was heat in them, heat that reminded my body of where it had been, only an hour ago. Heat and something else. Whatever he saw in my own eyes made him nod.
“I’ll let you win this battle, Aviva . But don’t mistake me: the war? It’s mine. And. So. Are. You .”
“For now,” I muttered.
He didn’t dignify that with an answer as he lifted his hand. “Jack and Coke for me, Jack and Ginger for him.”
“Cute,” I said.
He winked at me. Like we were just two college students, flirting, and not a desperate-for-justice woman and her mercurial, enigmatic bully.
Who was Jack Feldman, really? And why had he chosen to torture me this way? I wanted answers. But I doubted I’d ever get them. If anything was clear to me, it was that the Kings’ left wing carried his cards close to his chest. I shouldn’t want to know him better, but I did. Mostly because knowledge was power, and if I did have his secrets, I might have leverage to use against him.
As I thought, I mixed his and Isaac’s drinks. Isaac checked his phone while Jack watched me.
“Are you two even allowed to be drinking during the season?” I asked.
Jack shrugged. “I’m twenty-two; Isaac’s twenty-one. Some players don’t drink during the season, but I’ve never been that way, and I let the team do what they want, as long as they don’t fuck up a game—or do anything stupid enough to get kicked off.”
I ignored the jab. “Twenty-two?”
He nodded. “I red-shirted. Meaning?—”
“Meaning you didn’t play freshman year to give you four full years after. So you’re a fifth year.” I put down paper coasters and placed both drinks on top of them. Jack handed over his credit card.
It was a black Amex.
I swallowed, aware just how out of my depth I was with him. He didn’t just have power over me as Reina’s king and overlord. He was wealthy , powerful outside of this little college bubble, too. Once again, I wondered what it was like to have that much power. How safe it must feel, knowing if you fell, you’d always land on your feet—or if not, that someone would catch you. I’d never had that, not since I woke up to gunshots at the age of ten and discovered my parents, dead in their bedroom…
“Aviva.” Jack’s voice was sharp. “Where’d you go?”
I swallowed again. It was none of his business, but if I said that, he’d only push harder. “Why’d you redshirt?”
He raised an eyebrow but let it go. “I was good, good enough to be recruited by Reina, but not good enough to get me where I needed to be.” He smiled at me, and despite myself, I smiled back. “I was actually pretty scrawny. Coach used to call me Jack the beanstalk.”
At the mention of Coach Jensen, we both stilled, remembering. We weren’t friends. We were on the opposite sides of this: for him, protecting his coach and his team. For me, getting justice against all of them for my brother.
Even though both of us were motivated by loyalty, it pulled us in two different directions. Jack was so, so sure he’d win. But I refused to let him. There was too much riding on it.
I took a deep breath, promising myself that even though I’d play his game, for now, I wouldn’t lose sight of my greater purpose. He wouldn’t destroy my mission, and he wouldn’t break me. I wouldn’t let that happen.
Jack Feldman didn’t understand the enemy he’d made in me.
But I lifted my lips in a fake smile and said, “Open or closed?”
Jack watched me, and I tried to shut him out of my brain. “Open. We’ll be here for a while.”
Isaac thumbsed-up, busy chatting with the two girls from earlier who’d made their way over to us. But every few seconds, he’d glance over to where Tovah was busy serving the other half of the bar.
Now, that was interesting.
“Jack,” the girl from earlier said. “I’m Lindsey. I’m a big fan of the team—and you.”
“Yeah?” Jack looked at me. I purposefully turned away, taking orders from other students. Even though it was a Monday night, the bar had begun to fill up. Reina was very much a “work hard, play harder” type of school—unlike Stanford, which had been very “work hard, work harder, sleep.”
Or at least it had been that way for me.
Don’t you think you should start living for yourself?
Pasting a flirtatious smile on my face, I served student after student, cleaning as I went because Dick was too cheap to hire barbacks. I tried to ignore Jack’s conversation with Lindsey, but it was practically impossible. He hadn’t left his seat at the bar, just grinned at her. She giggled at something he’d said. It would be bullshit of me to not like her just for flirting with an objectively attractive guy. A guy who happened to have been inside of me only a few hours ago.
Fuck my life.
“Aviva!” Dick hollered from the back. “Get in here.”
“But I have customers,” I called back.
“Don’t care. Tovah can handle them. Get in here.”
Sighing, I dropped my rag on the counter, signaled Tovah, who rolled her eyes and shook her head. I walked around to the end of the bar and headed down the hallway to the back room.
I pushed the door open to find Dick, straddling a chair in front of his desk and, of course, leering at me. Revulsion filled me, but just like every other day I came into work, I buried it. I needed the money, he was my boss, so I was stuck hiding how I really felt and letting him push me around.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
He tried to hide his leer under a stern look, but I saw right through him. Even if I hadn’t been able to read his real thoughts on his face, his hard weiner told the story.
Ick. Ugh. Ew.
“I’m concerned about your performance, Aviva,” he told me. “You’re late all the time?—”
Barely.
“—You’re rude to the customers?—”
The only customer I’d ever been rude to was Jack, and Dick hadn’t been there to see it.
“—And you’re not picking up the slack.”
I worked my ass off, it was his ass that was lazy.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” I forced out the words.
Dick smirked. “Unfortunately, better isn’t enough. I think I’m going to have to let you go…”
No .
He couldn’t. He couldn’t fire me. The Stacks was the only bar in Gehenom or the surrounding towns that would hire me without a bartending license, and any other job would conflict with my classes. Work-study didn’t pay well enough. The tips at The Stacks weren’t amazing, but they were better than anywhere else I could work. What was I going to do?
Jack can help you. It was a bizarre thought. Jack was wealthy, but he didn’t want to help me, he wanted to hurt me. I dismissed the thought, focusing on Dick.
“Please, Dick, don’t fire me,” I begged. “I need this job. I need?—”
“I know Aviva, I know,” he shushed me, and the sound slithered over my skin like a slug. I swallowed down bile. “We can come to an…arrangement.”
He winked at me, and I wanted to die. I knew what he meant.
But as if I didn’t, he placed his hand on his zipper. “You take care of Big Dick, and I’ll let you keep your job.”
Overcompensation. When someone exaggerates to cover up a shortcoming. Dick’s macho bullshit was straight out of a psych 101 textbook.
I covered my mouth. I was going to laugh, or scream, I wasn’t sure, but neither would serve me right now.
But I knew my answer.
No.
No, I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. I was already being sexually blackmailed by one man, I refused to let it be two. Let it become a pattern. I’d rather start an Only Fans than let Dick touch me.
But what made the difference between him and Jack? Why would I let Jack coerce me, but not my boss? Yes, I was repulsed by Dick, and not by Jack, but? —
—oh god, was I into Jack, even though he was horrible to me?
“How about it, Aviva? You suck my dick good, and I’ll even let you leave early.”
I shook my head.
“Absolutely the fuck not.”
Dick’s face turned pinker than it had when Alex had given him shit earlier.
“Listen here, you little slut. I’m being generous with you. You don’t do this, and I’ll make sure you don’t get a job anywhere . I’ll?—”
The door opened behind me, and someone cleared their throat. “I wouldn’t finish that sentence, Richard Doyle,” said Jack from behind me.