Chapter 17 #2
My palm moved to his tented pants, and he thrust against my hand as I stroked him through the material, my teeth nipping his bottom lip gently.
“Don’t move,” I ordered quietly, making him chuckle.
“Don’t have to tell me twice, babe. Whatever this is, I’m rolling with it.”
I moved to the floor and got to my knees, unbuttoning his pants to pull his dick out, and his breath hitched as I stroked him in my fist and licked the tip. His eyes closed and his head dropped back on the couch as I pushed him down my throat, a soft curse leaving him.
When his fingers moved to my hair, I didn’t stop him, letting him have some control since he wasn’t being rough. My ribs hurt at this angle, but I’d put up with it for him if it cleared his mind for a few minutes.
I gagged, his hips bucking slightly as his fingers tightened in my hair, and I let him fuck my mouth until he was forcing himself deep to finish. I tried not to show my discomfort, but I obviously didn’t hide it well enough when he looked down at me and his face fell slightly.
“Shit, did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just aching from the suicides today,” I replied, and he leaned forward to give me a kiss.
“Sorry. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Did it help?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then it was worth it,” I smiled, getting to my feet and realizing Caden was standing in the doorway. He was studying me, and part of me wondered if he knew about my ribs, but when I walked past to get a drink, he silently kissed my temple and rejoined Tyler on the couch, not saying anything.
Tyler
Nightmares plagued me, and I woke with a jerk, my breathing loud in the silent room. The clock on the bedside table said it was almost five in the morning, and I startled when a warm hand slid up my chest.
“Ty?” Rory mumbled, reminding me that she’d climbed into bed with me last night.
I blew out a breath and pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head.
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
I should’ve said yes, not wanting to bother her with my bullshit, but I shook my head as if she could see me.
“No. Nightmares.”
She pressed closer to me, kissing my neck. “Want to talk about it?”
“No, go back to sleep. I might get up and hit the gym or something,” I answered, but when I went to move, she clung to me.
“Do you want a distraction?” she offered, my dick waking up to that idea.
She’d pulled a muscle or something in PE, I’d seen the way she was moving stiffly before bed, so I couldn’t lose myself in her. I already felt bad enough for when she’d blown me after school and definitely hurt herself.
“You can’t handle the distraction I need,” I joked, sitting up slightly. “Maybe I’ll go for a drive.” I got out of bed, frowning when I heard her get up too. “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you. I’ll drive,” she said, pulling her sweats on in the dark before flicking the lamp on to find a hoodie.
“You don’t have—”
“I want to. Your car’s not here anyway. I’ll take you to the Heights,” she insisted, my frown deepening.
“What for?”
“Lots of ways to blow off steam in the Heights,” she grinned, walking over to me and kissing my cheek. “Go on, get dressed. I’ll tell Caden we’re sneaking out so he doesn’t worry.”
I watched her leave the room, then I quickly got dressed and crept into the hallway, just as Rory was leaving Caden’s room.
She took my hand and led me downstairs, and she didn’t say anything until we were in the Corvette and on the road.
“Do you want to break stuff? There’s a few abandoned houses I know of that we can fuck up a little.”
“I usually set fires, but I almost got arrested last time, so I’ve had to rein it in,” I said with a cringe, my fingers itching to set something ablaze. It had been too long.
“I can do fire,” she said without hesitation, glancing over at me in the dark car. “Small, or big?”
“We can’t just set things on fire,” I argued, but excitement bubbled below my skin already at the thought.
“Sure we can. It’s the Heights, Ty. No one gives a shit out there. We won’t burn someone’s house, just an empty one that’s already being torn down or something.”
I fell even more in love with her, staring at her as she drove, and I almost told her to pull over so I could drag her onto my lap.
Caden wasn’t buying the period thing, and neither was I, but if she was avoiding sex because of her trauma, then I didn’t want to push her. Something was definitely on her mind, so maybe coming out with me tonight was what she needed too?
She parked in a quiet street and shut off the engine, climbing out and motioning for me to follow. I had no idea where we were, but she navigated the dark easily, walking through an alley and onto another street.
The smell of smoke lingered in the air, telling me something had already burned tonight, and the sound of screeching tires in the distance almost made me second-guess what we were doing.
Surely the cops would be out looking for reckless drivers and would be here in seconds if a fire broke out.
She put her hood up and I did the same, walking past a few houses until she stopped in front of one that’s roof was caving in, turning to face me. “Will this do?”
“You sure we won’t get arrested? Josie will flip out if she comes home today and has to bail us out of jail,” I warned, making her wink.
“Promise.”
My nightmares were forgotten as we moved towards the house, my lighter already in hand as I flicked it out of habit, glancing around for something to start it. There were some old pieces of furniture, but we needed more than that.
“Rory,” I whisper-yelled when she pulled herself through an open window, not wanting her to hurt herself on broken glass, let alone if the roof collapsed more, but she waved me off.
“I’ve been in here plenty. I want to make sure there’s no squatters sleeping inside first.”
“Look at it. I highly doubt anyone’s living in it,” I deadpanned as I followed, making her look back at me.
“When you have nothing, this is like a palace. It has some protection from the elements, and one of the houses further along the road is a dealer. Somewhere to sleep that’s within walking distance to drugs is a gold mine.”
“Have you stayed in places like this?” I asked slowly as she led me through the house, my nose wrinkling at the state of it. Trash was everywhere, mold growing on the walls in places as she pulled her phone out to use the flashlight on it. “There’s rats. I think we’re safe.”
“Cockroaches too, but that doesn’t mean someone hasn’t made it their home,” she explained, poking her head into one of the rooms to check. “And yes, I’ve stayed in places like this. I didn’t really get much sleep, but it was out of the rain and let me sit for a while.”
“How old were you?”
“Too many times to count. The first time I snuck out to a place like this though, I was probably ten. Max had creepy friends over, so I had to go somewhere else.”
“Ten?”
She stopped, turning to give me her full attention. “I’ve seen kids as young as three in places like this.”
“That makes my problems seem stupid,” I chuckled weakly, feeling bad all of a sudden. “This was a dumb idea. It was just a nightmare. You probably think I’m just being a typical rich kid.”
Her face softened, and she shook her head. “I don’t think that. Your problems and trauma are just as valid. Just because the situation is different, doesn’t mean it’s stupid. You want to burn this down, or not?”
I did. I really fucking did.
“Is it clear?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Yeah, the backroom is full of junk and part of the roof. There’s no room for a stray dog in there, let alone a person. Trust me, I’ve tried,” she laughed as if that was funny, starting to grab a few things and pile them up in the middle of the room.
I helped, and once we had a large pile, she stepped back for me.
“Let it burn. We’ll run back to the car and head to the school.
I’ll take you up to the roof so we can watch from a distance,” she explained, and I squatted down to set an old rag on fire, the smell of smoke filling my senses and calming something inside of me.
Once it was crackling and starting to spread, I moved back beside Rory with a grin. “We should’ve bought gasoline.”
“If it goes off like a bomb, the cops from Ashburn will show up,” she joked, tugging at my arm as it kept growing, picking up power as more items caught fire. “We need to go. By the time we get to the school, it should be fully ablaze.”
I wanted to stay right where I was, but I let her pull me towards the window we’d climbed in through, and we jogged back to the car that was surprisingly untouched.
I jumped as a gunshot went off somewhere close by, but Rory didn’t even react as she unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel, starting the engine as I got in and put my seat belt on.
“Did you not hear the gunshot?” I asked as she turned the car around, making her raise an eyebrow.
“That’s just the soundtrack of the Heights. It was a few streets over, nothing for us to worry about.”
“How do you know?”
“Growing up here, you learn fast where gunfire is coming from,” she shrugged, and I glanced back to watch the smoke rising in the sky, my leg bouncing with anticipation to watch it.
The drive to the local high school didn’t take long, and she took me up to the large, flat roof area that she seemed extremely familiar with, my eyes widening as I noticed the house fully ablaze, not all that far away.
It was a great view, and when she took my hand, I gave it a gentle squeeze.
We sat on the edge of the roof and watched it burn until fire truck lights flashed in the distance, the wail of the siren screaming out across the early hours of the morning.
The sun was only just coming up over the hillside, and I took the time to study Rory as she watched the blaze and swung her legs a little, seeming to find peace in the chaos like I did.
“Is this your spot?” I asked quietly after a while, glancing around the school yard to take it all in now that the sun was coming up.
“If I say yes, will you come looking for me all the time?” she asked a little hesitantly, and I shook my head.
“No. Not unless you’re in danger.”
She was quiet for a moment before nodding, her eyes scanning the yard too. “I like to sit here and think. It’s peaceful at night unless other people are around.”
“Thanks for bringing me here,” I murmured, and she gave me a smile.
“That’s okay. Don’t come here without me though. You’d one hundred percent get stabbed and robbed.”
“Noted,” I cringed, my eyes returning to the orange flames.
“My nightmares are always the same. I’m always little, waiting at the window with my face pressed against the glass on my birthday for my parents to come home.
They never do. Sometimes the dreams add little things, like I remember one where the glass breaks and I cut my face.
Another, a car crashed through and killed me.
Either way, it was always my birthday, and always that window I sat at. ”
“Is it a dream based on a memory?”
My brow creased, not knowing how she knew that. “Yeah, why?”
“I have a dream that does the same thing. One of Mom waking me for school with pancakes. Each time I had the dream, it would end with her being really hurt or killed. Sometimes by Max, other times someone else. It was the same memory I had from a summer’s day where we had pancakes and were supposed to go to the park for ice cream.
In the memory, Max got angry and hit me with the breakfast plate because I spilled some syrup on the ground,” she said lightly, seeming to pause before adding, “We never got to go to the park. She left three days later while I was at school.”
My heart hurt for her, it really did. It sucked growing up with parents who didn’t care about you, but having one parent love you unconditionally then leave was a whole different kind of pain that I couldn’t imagine.
“You sure he didn’t kill her and bury her in the yard or something? Were they fighting?” I asked carefully, not wanting to upset her, but knowing this might not be as simple as her running away.
She sighed, obviously going over these questions in her head a million times before.
“She left a note saying she was coming back for me. She ran to find somewhere safe, maybe because he started hurting her too, I’m not sure, but Max had never done that before.
He yelled at her and abused their money, but he only got violent with me.
Josie found out Mom had a place with a new boyfriend in Rosevale and was pregnant, but her trail went cold after that and she vanished. Skeet’s going to help me look.”
I was pretty sure that was the most personal information she’d ever shared with me, and I savored it, silently promising to help her find her mom. If she managed to get to Rosevale and start another life, chances were high she’d changed her name or something to stay hidden.
Money talked, and thankfully, I had plenty of that if she needed it.
“You want to go home and smoke joints over breakfast? We should leave before teachers start arriving,” I warned, looking at the fire one last time.
“As long as we get coffee with it. I’m still not awake,” she laughed, getting to her feet.
She sucked in a sharp breath of pain, and I made a mental note to get her naked later so I could inspect her for damage.
If she’d been hurt, surely she would’ve told us, but I had to be sure.