Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Alivia
Me
Just wanted to tell you I love you.
Lex
Love you more. Will you please plan a trip here soon? I really miss my bestie.
Me
I promise I will.
Now go to bed. I’ll call you on my way to Charred tomorrow.
Lex
XO
Islipped my phone into my bag and pulled out of the parking lot behind Charred, my hand rubbing across my face as I drove. My skin was still a little raw from Walker’s beard and the way he’d ravished me on top of his desk tonight.
God.
That man.
Maybe it was because the countdown of moving out wasn’t ticking by fast enough.
Maybe it was because each time I returned to Dean’s, I wanted to be there less and less.
Maybe it was because, whenever I headed in this direction, all I thought was that I’d rather be spending the night at Walker’s.
But every time I left a shift at Charred, the commute to Dean’s felt endless.
The darkness outside would hit me hard. The road, although never quiet, felt like silence.
Instead of crashing out, I put my brain in a place that made me smile.
Like this evening.
Although it hadn’t started off quiet and I’d almost lost it outside Walker’s office door, the night had turned into something incredible.
I swore, every day, my feelings for him grew stronger.
When I cooked with him, I felt a warmth in my chest that had nothing to do with the fire from the gas range.
When I sensed his stare on me, I felt beautiful.
Wanted. Desired. When his arms hugged me, I could close my eyes, and every fear drained through my toes.
Love was there.
It beat like the bubbling boil of the vegan ramen we’d made.
A ramen I couldn’t stop thinking about as I parked my car under the streetlight and walked across the road that weaved through the small complex, climbing the two steps outside Dean’s front door. My key slid into the lock, and I quietly opened the door.
There was a chance he could be asleep. That chance increased the later I returned home, the beer eventually causing him to pass out.
But where was he sleeping? That was the question.
Sometimes, he was on the couch. That made things easy.
But then there were times he was in the hallway, lying horizontally over the carpet, his back against one wall, his legs stretched toward the other, so I would have to step over him to get to my room.
That asshole lived to verbally torment me.
And on a few occasions, he’d wake up just as I was stepping over him, and he’d grab my foot, the screaming immediately igniting from him.
I wasn’t lucky enough to walk into a sleeping Dean tonight.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
My key wasn’t even out of the lock.
As I exhaled through my lips, the air hit them just right, and they vibrated, making an additional sound.
I twisted the metal, freeing the key, and while I put the set in my bag, I closed the door and took a quick inventory of the room.
I first counted the amount of beer on the table.
He liked to keep his empties there, as though they were trophies, and he would throw them away when he began drinking the next day and start over. The amount was too many to count.
And that was a number that alarmed me.
Mom wasn’t in here. Neither was there any food, and I couldn’t smell a single aroma in the air aside from cigarette smoke.
“Answer me, Alivia.”
“I met up with some friends. We went out.”
I’d been giving him that reason almost every time I came home. I’d stopped trying to come up with unique lies.
I was too tired for that.
“Bullshit. You don’t have any fucking friends.”
While I walked toward the living room, where he was sitting in the center, his gaze dropped down my body as though he was looking for signs to prove me wrong.
There were no signs.
I’d left my uniform and black sneakers at Charred. Before I’d left the restaurant, I’d changed into a pair of jeans, a tank top, and flip-flops. My hair was up, but that meant nothing, and I’d been using the same purse for years.
If Dean was observant, he’d know that this was the same outfit I’d worn home last night and the night before. And when I went to bed, the clothes would go right back in my purse for tomorrow’s drive home.
“Where’s my beer?”
His beer.
His money.
Two things that endlessly poured from his sour lips.
“I didn’t have time to stop and get some—”
“Where’s my fucking beer, Alivia?”
“I already told you, I didn’t have time to stop and get you some.”
He moved to the end of the couch, his hair matted from resting on it all day.
“What do you mean, you didn’t have time?
You were in your car, weren’t you? You drove, didn’t you?
” He lifted his hand to point at me, and beer sloshed out the top of the can.
“The only thing that stopped you from picking some up is fucking selfishness.” A look of disgust crossed his face.
“You have plenty of money. I know you do.”
I had about ten more seconds in me before I darted to my room. If I did that as soon as I came home, he would spend far more time banging on my door. The best-case scenario was to get this conversation out of the way.
“You know nothing about me.”
His fisted hand pounded on the couch. “Give me some fucking money!”
The screams.
I knew they were coming. They always did. And now that they were here, all I wanted to do was cover my ears.
But I wouldn’t be that vulnerable in front of him.
I wouldn’t show him that anything he did affected me.
“I already paid you for the month.” I crossed my arms, hugging them against me. “I have nothing else to give you.”
“You’re a liar!” His lips were so wet; it looked like he’d dunked them in water.
“Dean!” my mother shouted. “I need a drink!”
“Shut up, Melanie! Shut your goddamn mouth!”
The shaking from their screams had already started. I needed it to stop until I got to my room.
“Dean,” my mother continued. “Dean!”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “I know you have money. Give it up.” He held out his hand and curled his fingers inward, like he was calling me over. His nails were far too long with dirt caked beneath them.
“Don’t you think if I had money, I’d be moving out?” I glanced down my body. “That I wouldn’t be wearing the same clothes every day? I don’t have anything. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that.”
“You have a mouth on you. Just like your fucking mother. At least I can shut hers up with rum. You? You just keep running it. All you ever say is no whenever I ask for something. You don’t appreciate what I do for you.
” He lit a cigarette, took a drag, and set it on the ashtray.
“You don’t appreciate how much I give you.
” He took a long gulp of his beer. “You selfish fucking bitch.”
Fuck this.
And fuck him.
“I don’t have any money!” I took a step toward the hallway.
“You had money to go out with your friends.” He stood from the couch.
My skin was sweating, and it was freezing in here. My fingers were pinching my stomach, squeezing the skin. I wanted it to hurt.
I wanted anything but this.
I shook my head. “No—”
“You have money to drive your fucking car and fill it with gas.”
“That doesn’t cost much—”
“You have money to eat.” His eyes took a disgusting sweep of my body. “Filling those jeans out real nice, aren’t you, girlie?”
I felt sick to my stomach. “I’m going to bed.”
As I rushed toward the hallway, he sidestepped and blocked me, smiling as if I were handing him another drink. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I didn’t want to get too close to him, so I backed up a few paces, hoping I could settle him some and he would sit back down. “To my room.”
“But that’s my room! And this is my house!” He downed the rest of his beer and threw the can toward the wall beside him. I jumped as the metal crashed into drywall. “If you’re not going to give me what I ask for, then I’m taking matters into my own fucking hands.”
He walked toward me, and as he reached for my shoulder, I moved back. But he must have taken one extra step than me because he grabbed the strap of my purse.
“Let go!” I held the bottom of the bag with both hands.
“Give me that fucking purse!”
“No!” As I yanked my body away from his grip, the tension of him pulling caused the strap to break.
The momentum then proved to be too much, and the bag went flying from my hands. It flipped over in the air and emptied onto the floor.
“Fuck!” My arms reached out, and I fell to my knees to grasp my wallet.
He got to it first, lifting it and unsnapping the center. “Let’s see what’s in here.”
“Give it to me, Dean.”
I tried to get it from his hands, and his palm landed on my upper chest, right below my throat, and he pushed me.
The drive sent me backward.
One step, two.
But I landed wrong on my foot, stumbling on my flip-flop.
And—oh God—I fell.
“Ah!” My ass hit the carpet first, and I got up as quickly as I could, but he already had my money in his hands. “Give it to me!”
The three hundred I’d earned tonight. The two fifty I’d earned last night.
I hadn’t had time to go to the bank and deposit the cash.
I never thought he would get my purse.
Or did I?
“What do we have here?” He fanned the bills, giving me a half-toothed smile.
“What you have is my money.”
His laugh was more like a cackle. “Your money? But I thought you didn’t have any?” He slipped the cash into his pocket. “It’s my money now.”
“Dean—”
He bowed up. “I know you’re not making that kinda dough at the assisted living facility. You have another job. You’ve been fucking lying to me.”
“No.”