Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
K AYLA
Today is my rare day off. I’m not working my waitressing job; I was planning to spend it with Freya and Alex for a couple of hours and then do some drawing. But considering yesterday evening, I’m in no mood for socializing, so now I have only the drawing part left.
I make myself some matcha tea—because I never got a chance to drink the delicious goodness that Freya hooked me on—swipe my pencils and a notebook off the table and head outside.
I’m sitting in my little chair, soft gusts of wind tangling strands of hair as I’m submerged in my drawing, when I hear the powerful engine of a big car roaring closer and closer to me. It’s surprising because only three people know where I live, and I’m not expecting any of them.
When Justin’s truck appears on the unpaved road, I curse mentally.
Who the hell told him where I live? I know Freya and Alex wouldn’t do that, and the other person is Marina, who would die before she shared a breath of information about me with him.
The feeling of being safe in my home, something so precious to me, slowly dissolves into thin air.
Justin parks next to my car and slowly gets out, wincing as if being here is causing him physical pain. I roll my eyes at his theatrics and keep drawing. He makes a show of taking his sunglasses off and looking around with disgust.
“Nothing seems to change for you,” he announces with a scowl and strides toward me.
Asshole. There’s nothing I can tell him that’s not going to end with a fight.
He seems too eager for one, and that’s precisely why I keep my mouth shut.
He plants his annoyingly tight butt on the chair next to me that I keep for my tired feet after long shifts.
“What are you doing here, Justin?” I ask him without taking my eyes off my task: drawing horns on my anime design. How fitting.
He’s quiet for a few moments, and just when I nearly lose hope of getting anything out of him, he answers. “You need to end your friendship with Freya.”
“Sure,” I shoot back sarcastically. I flick my eyes at him for a moment before I resume drawing, pressing the pencil harder into the paper, making the horns thicker and darker.
He throws his hand out and covers the drawing, smashing the pencil across it in the process.
It flies to the grass. I finally make eye contact with him. “Get. Your. Hand. Off.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’re bad news. You need to leave them both alone.” His voice is low and menacing. It’s meant to hurt. And it does.
“Is it that they don’t want me around, or you don’t?” I lift my gaze to catch his .
He holds my eyes, and confesses after a few loud heartbeats, “I don’t.”
“Good thing, then. Because I don’t care.” I move to pick up the fallen pencil from the ground, and he follows my lead. Now we both are on our knees.
“Look, I was Alex’s friend way before you were in the picture. Our friendship takes precedence over yours with Freya.” He grabs one side of the pencil just as I grab the other.
“Without Freya, you wouldn’t even have your friend, now, would you?” I pull the pencil from his hands. “And Freya is more my friend than yours.”
“Freya wouldn’t be your friend if she knew the truth about you,” he growls, and his voice takes on a threatening tone. “Like the whole town does.”
That does it.
“Get the hell out of here,” I snarl. I stand, resisting making an extra hole in him with the damn pencil, and turn on my heel to walk back to my trailer.
I step inside and am about to close the door when Justin shoves his way in. Suddenly, the space feels smaller. It’s enough when I’m alone, but with him in this confined space, it feels suffocating. “Get out of my house!” I point at the door.
“‘House’?” He makes a show of looking around and chuckles evilly. No-no-no, no one’s talking shit about my house. Especially not him, Mr. Born-with-a-Silver-Spoon-in-His-Mouth.
“Out, Attleborough! Now!” I yell. I never yell. Ever. Well, very rarely, let’s put it that way. I’m a level-headed person because I grew up with two histrionics in the house, so I try my hardest to be the opposite of that, resolving conflict with a simple, even-toned conversation .
Well, fuck that. The time for that is way in the past.
He moves forward as I move backward. There’s not much space, so in three steps, I’m cornered against the wall.
His presence is looming. He puts one hand on the side of my face and leans closer.
His arm is so close to my face that I can see the fine hairs on his skin and blue veins on his bulged muscles.
“We both know you’re no good for people.
You’re toxic. You need to make up an excuse and finally leave this town for good. Do us all a favor.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss. Did I say I had a crush on him? I hate him. That’s it. That’s the fine line between hate and love everybody keeps talking about. I see it clearly now, right there, that damn line blazing red, and I’m so stepping over it.
“Oh, you wish, don’t you?” He smiles and inches closer, half-leaning his body on me.
He trails his nose along my cheek, and I hate myself for shivering.
We’re in the same position we found ourselves in back at the diner weeks ago, only now I don’t have an escape.
He cornered me in my own home, and I’m apparently less than eager to push him away, it seems. Why aren’t I pushing him away?
That’d be the right thing to do, I tell my body.
I feel weirdly too warm and too sticky. I pull my wits together and decide to follow my own advice, so I lift my hands to shove him off me, but he easily grabs them both in his large ones, folding them behind my back and using them to pin me against the wall.
His fingers linger on the top of my ass, brushing along the curve ever so lightly.
“You smell good.” He presses his nose into the slope of my neck and inhales deeply.
“So fucking good. Like strawberries and fucking sin,” he murmurs, and it feels like he’s talking to himself, not me.
He nuzzles his nose under my ear and nips at my skin, and I let out an embarrassing whimper.
It seems to sober him up because he releases me and rushes to take a haphazard step back.
I don’t know where to avert my gaze, so I look down.
I mean to focus on the floor, but my gaze catches on his pants.
His dick straining against them, ready to burst through the zipper at any moment.
I can see the outline through the denim, and I feel my face flare.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” He adjusts himself, noticing where my attention is fixed. “It’s a normal reaction to any pussy.”
And just like that, the spell is broken. I grind my teeth, nearly breaking them down into dust. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Justin, I really don’t. But you need to get the hell out before I call the cops.”
“Oh, you like doing that, too, don’t you?” His tone becomes menacing, and he leans closer again, trying to intimidate me with his closeness. “You like calling the cops, huh?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, confused.
I’ve never called the cops in my life; quite the opposite, actually, since I was born on the wrong side of town and therefore destined to walk a thin line with the law—and, thanks to Jake, my life has been a living hell because of police presence, so no, I don’t ‘like’ calling the cops.
Ignoring my question, he grabs me by the hips and spins me so my cheek is plastered against the wall. I feel a pang of excitement, but I squash that little spark as if it was a bug, hoping it will freakin’ die because I will not allow myself to be turned on by this.
“Justin,” I ask in a calm voice despite my insides going crazy, “what are you doing?”
“Are you feeling it too?” He presses his body into my back, and I can feel every warm inch of him.
His hot breath caresses my ear. “Do you want me to fuck you as much as I do?” He grinds his pelvis into the curve of my ass.
He’s hard. Another sparkle of excitement trickles through my traitorous body.
It clearly didn’t get a memo from my brain that said we should be angry and disgusted.
He licks the shell of my ear, and liquid heat pools between my legs, coaxing me to give up. Just a little. C’mon.
I have a problem. I officially need to see a shrink.
Justin continues to grind into me and bites my earlobe again.
I keep my palms plastered on the wall, scared that if I let go, they’ll be wandering all over whatever body parts of his they’d be able to reach.
His hands rest flat on the wall on either side of my face as he touches me with his whole body—everything but his hands, and I want them on me the most. I wiggle until I can turn in place to face him.
He doesn’t give me space, instead pushing me back with his frame again.
His mouth is so close to me that I can taste his warm minty breath.
He’s hovering over my lips, making it his purpose to torture me before the kiss.
And I know it’s torture; we both do. When I finally can’t take it any longer, I lift my face closer to his, hoping for a kiss.
Instead, he laughs abruptly and steps back, the sudden distance jolting me.
“What—you didn’t think I’d kiss that lying mouth, did you? In the dark, maybe, so I don’t have to see you.” He laughs again, and this time, it has no humor. It’s cruel. And evil. And aiming to kill.
“Seemed like you were singing a different tune just a few weeks ago.” I feel a vein begin throbbing on my neck, and my face heats up, probably turning bright red.
“Yeah.” He smirks. The motherfucker smirks ! “Wanted to see your reaction.”
If he slapped me, I’d feel less pain. My eyes begin to water.
I step toward him and push against his chest. He stops laughing and steps back.
I push harder. And harder. If he wanted, I’d never move him from the spot, but he lets me.
My cheeks are getting wet—I didn’t even notice when the tears began pouring down—and I push harder.
He stumbles over a storage bin on the floor and looks down.
I hate him.
I hate you.
“Get the fuck out of my house!” I wail. He looks up, and his eyes don’t hold even a bit of laughter anymore. They’re laced with… regret? Pity? Sadness? I don’t give a fuck anymore. “ Go !”
He walks out without a word and peels off. When I’m sure he’s left, I throw myself on my wonderful, cozy, worn-out loveseat I bought at a yard sale for fifty bucks and let myself drown in sorrow.
All the feelings I ever held for Justin Attleborough have died.