22. Nick
22
NICK
I stayed in the storage prep room after Sabrina ran out. The erection tenting under my pants wouldn’t do me any favors. If someone saw me chase after Sabrina, they’d connect the dots and know she was the cause of this raging boner away from the party.
Sighing heavily, I leaned against the edge of the prep table and stared down at the floor.
I could still taste her on my tongue.
I could still hear the sexy moan she made when I touched her.
And I could still see in my mind’s eye how close she’d come to crying. Not because Tiffany made her fall and cut her hand, but because she was so overcome with desperation to both hate me and want me.
Even though the thoughts of her when she came would stay with me for a long time, my erection faded the more I focused on what she’d said. Besides her confession of wanting me so badly, she’d clued in to the fact that I had likely sought her out in the first place because of Tiffany. And that was the truth. I had.
But I couldn’t live with myself if I worked on trying to ruin Sabrina anymore. I didn’t want to. The only way I wanted to ruin her was sexually. Intimately. In bed. I wanted to make her break for me in the sweetest, hottest, sexiest way possible. I wanted to destroy her and ravish her all at once.
Fuck.
I rubbed my hand over my face.
What is she doing to me?
I’d never lost it for a woman before. No girl had ever gotten under my skin like this.
After a long while of zoning out and waiting for my erection to be tamed, I left the small room to go back out and check on Sabrina. I couldn’t leave. Not yet. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to go after her again tonight, not when we’d come so close to being caught together. But my stepsister was still out there, and she’d still bother her. Maybe this time, I’d distract her from being near Sabrina.
I reentered the big, glass-domed venue space where the party was still going on. Off to one side, I spotted Sabrina with Melody and Joann. It seemed like her mother was urging her to leave. The boss was nodding her head as well, encouraging Sabrina to go.
Walking past them, I eavesdropped without getting so close that she’d see me.
“Sabrina, you are the hardest worker I know,” Joann said. “But you’re hurt.”
“It’s not my dominant hand,” Sabrina protested.
“No, and that’s even worse,” Melody said. “We carry trays with our non-dominant hands. Please, honey, just head home and make sure that cut stays clean and bandaged, all right?”
Good. I wanted her to leave. Not only to rest and take it easy with her hand but also so she would be spared from Tiffany’s bullying tactics.
I sighed in relief when Sabrina left moments later. Maybe she hated to be idle. Or perhaps she was glad to not have to be here near Tiffany any longer. Either way, it was for the best that she sat out the rest of the party.
Once she was gone, I took a seat at a table off to the rear of the room. I didn’t want to stay, but I wasn’t sure where else to go or what else to do now. I was unsettled and confused about things developing before I ate her out in that small room. Now, after the fact, I was more on edge and lost.
“Well, well, well.”
Tiffany approached me, smiling with an eerily cool calm.
I gritted my teeth, staring ahead and not acknowledging her as she took the seat next to me.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” she remarked before sighing airily, as if we were two buddies having random small talk.
“I followed you after you ran after her. You know, after she tripped like a klutz holding that tray of wine.”
You heartless bitch. She sounded proud that she’d made Sabrina fall. And she wouldn’t give a shit that she’d been hurt in the process.
She didn’t speak for a moment, leaving me hanging and waiting in suspense. If she followed me all the way through the kitchen and near that room where I’d locked myself in with Sabrina…
Oh, fuck.
“She wasn’t exactly quiet in there.” Tiffany flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder and huffed. “I have to hand it to you, sacrificing your time to actually mess around with her. I mean, it’s got to be so hard not to be repulsed by someone like her, yet you came through.”
She heard us. She heard Sabrina as she came. We hadn’t found privacy after all, and I loathed my stepsister for ruining that experience. Sabrina was mine to enjoy and pleasure, and having a mean-spirited person like Tiffany invading on it felt like a crime.
“But it’s not like anyone’s going to know that you’re fucking her or playing with her.” She turned toward me more, but I refrained from facing her. Registering her in my peripheral vision was all she was worth.
“What we need is a plan. You need to fuck her again, Nick, but this time, get it on video.”
I turned my head to glower at her.
“A sex tape.” She nodded, smiling with my attention on her now.
No fucking way in hell.
I was already kicking myself for that painting. I’d made Daniela delete the videos. A thick layer of black paint covered the canvas, hiding the artwork I’d made.
Over my dead body would I dupe Sabrina into making a sex tape with me so I could share it and shame her.
I stood and walked away.
No words came to me, and I was too enraged to reply, anyway. If I opened my mouth, I’d roar and bellow how much I hated her and wished she didn’t exist in my life. I’d scream and shout how pissed I was that she’d put me in this position.
Instead, I walked away. Hopefully, my abrupt departure would serve as a reply to her awful suggestion. I wouldn’t be taking her advice or following her plan.
Pierce came to pick me up on the road as I walked away from the venue.
“You all right, man?” he asked.
I shook my head, glaring out the windshield.
He chuckled, driving off. “You look like you need to get fucked up.”
I already was fucked up. I was stuck. So, I nodded. Drinking with my friend wouldn’t solve anything, but maybe for this one night, it might numb the shock and fury that couldn’t dissipate inside me.
“Please,” I replied to his continued chuckles.
The next day, I woke up late in the afternoon, hungover and no closer to any strategies or ideas how to manage this situation that was pulling me apart. I didn’t want to hurt Sabrina, but I had to ensure that Tiffany didn’t tell George that my mom was being unfaithful.
It was too late to go to class, and I wasn’t inclined to spend time at the studio and add on to a new painting, either.
Checking my phone, I spotted texts that I didn’t want to deal with.
Daniela was asking about what else she could post soon.
Tiffany had texted me suggested locations of where to dupe Sabrina into having sex with me for a recording.
A couple of art classmates had reached out about a study group, which was ironic anyway. It was for an art class. What was there to study? Our grades came from our projects, not tests.
Listless and missing Sabrina something fierce, I went onto social media to stalk her via her posts. The most recent one was an hour ago. In it, she was smiling at a beach where she was volunteering for a beach cleanup.
Of course.
Of course she was out there doing good.
That was the sweet, good girl she was.
What made my chest ache was how I knew she could be so perfectly naughty and bad, too, for me .
Needing to see her, I showered and got on my bike to check out this cleanup thing. Everything seemed different, shakier now, since we’d almost agreed that we couldn’t resist each other. I had no clue how I’d act around her on campus, and it was inevitable that I would see her. I wanted to. I was at the point that I desired her in my life as more than the little time I could enjoy her company there.
It wasn’t hard to find the beach cleanup area. Multiple signs indicated the way to go. While it wasn’t overly attended and too crowded with volunteers pitching in to help out and remove plastic and trash, it seemed like an impressive turnout. It wasn’t just one or two other tree-hugger kind of nerds out here. Kids. Teenagers. Senior citizens. Whole families. After I parked my bike and watched from the pull-off portion of the road, I swore that one couple near the water was on a date, unable to keep themselves from kissing in that sappy young-love way people had when they first hooked up.
I found Sabrina quickly, and like it usually happened between us, she lifted her head and made eye contact with me. Knowing my gaze on her was something tangible she couldn’t ignore, I held back a wide grin. Smiling seemed wrong right now. We weren’t in the same boat as that sappy, young-love couple. I had to come to terms with not hurting her, but also not losing the stability at home so my mom could one day get the help she needed. Therapy. Medication. More therapy. George would be able to afford it. I wouldn’t.
Just seeing Sabrina calmed my soul. I’d wanted to escape the darkness that I was supposed to call my life, and she was the grounding rock I needed.
It didn’t look like she felt the same right now. I expected her to be nervous after how close we’d almost been found at that party she was working at. Maybe she needed more time to recalibrate. While I didn’t get off my bike or approach her, just spying on her from this distance, I saw how she tried to ignore me. Even if she wasn’t attempting to avoid me, she was busy. From what I could tell, she was more or less the coordinator for this event. She directed people where to take bags of plastic trash. She walked along others on the sand, grabbing debris and putting it in her own container. Later, she got a clipboard out for interested volunteers to probably pledge to something.
If I ever doubted she had a good heart, I had all the proof here and now. She cared—about the environment, about normal, everyday citizens and neighbors, and about justice. And it wasn’t for show. She was here on the frontline, ready to get dirty with everyone else and do her part.
It didn’t take long for that familiar envy to rise up in me. She cared. She was a generous, giving soul.
But she won’t care about me.
Not like I wanted her to. So far, I was the object of her reluctant affection. I knew she desired me, but seeing how capable she was at opening her heart for others, I wanted in on that love too.
Fuck. Love?
It should’ve scared me how quickly I could let my thoughts veer in that direction.
The longer I stood around and watched her like the stalker I’d become for her, I realized that this area was somewhere I used to go as a kid. Before the first leukemia diagnosis came, back when I was a na?ve, happy-go-lucky kid, Dad would bring me and Mom out to this area. We’d pick shells. We’d chase waves. Have picnics. Build sand castles. All of it.
Instead of morphing into the usual pit of sadness and grief that came with thoughts and memories of my dad, something else struck me.
He’d be so ashamed of me.
If my dad were alive to meet Sabrina, he’d welcome her into the family. He’d like her, a fellow good-hearted and giving person. And if he knew what I had done to a good girl like her, if he knew what I was trying to do, he’d be so damn disappointed in me. Even after his death, he had that impact on me.
I hung my head and hated myself a little more for being caught between falling in love with the wrong girl and hoping I could save my mom and help her the best I could.